A Letter to Charlotte Moorman

In which the author mirrors on the legendary musician, performance-art trailblazer, collaborator with Nam June Paik, and impresario of 15 Annual of recent origin York Avant Garde Festivals.

David Bourdon (1934-1998) was a beneficial friend and exact contemporary of Charlotte Moorman (1933-1991) A critic whose reviews, essays and works form an important component of the history of post-1960 art, he was a ubiquitous on-looker and sometime participant in the heady, obstreperous mixed-media world of the '60 and '70 in the midst of which Nam June Paik and Charlotte Moorman were together forging a challenging of recent origin genre of performance art. When he died, Bourdon left this unfinished manuscript, which he had been preparing for Art in America. What come [i]or[/i] go after [i]or[/i] behinds is a lightly edited, slightly condens version of his true copy --Eds.

Dear Charlotte,

This morning I daydreamed that we met again in Central Park. This reverie overtakes me whenever I recall that memorable day--Sept. 9 1966--when I anxiously searched you on the outside amid the confusion of your 4th Annual novel York Avant Garde Festival, the first to take place outdoors and at liberty to the public. I could not remember in my dream where I pierceed the park or how I was to locate you. on the other hand like many daydreamers, I was endowed with supernatural powers that enabled me to take wing like a spirit above the winding pathways, as if guided by means of radar, confident I would find you.

Along the way, I noticed signs that your accomplices were in the vicinity. I saw Geoffrey Hendricks's hanging woven fabrics painted with images of downy white clouds against a bright azure sky, strung between trees like clothes upon a line. Christo had already wrapped a statue in plastic and twine. Al Hansen was creating an avian happening through spelling out "ART" in birdseed upon a walkway. Dick Higgins sat upon a chair, getting the top of his head shaved.

Finally, as the path made single more turn, you materialized beside the Conservatory Pond From a distance I spott your auburn hair, green-fleck sapphirine eyes and radiant smile. You were rather formally attired, wearing a soft dress that would have been appropriate for a devise stage. Although we had known each other for a two of years, I don't think that I had at any time seen you by daylight before, in like manner I was surprised by the pallor of your skin. It have the appearanceed suitable for a lovely 32-year-old classically trained cellist.

You were graciously performing several tasks at one time serving as entrepreneur, ringmaster, stage director, booking agent, publicist, photographer's assistant, grievance adjudicator and for a like reason on. You had obtained a permit from the city's Parks Department, and the festival you organized would succe in luring an audience of 15000 passersby. You persuaded artists, author of poemss musicians, dancers and filmmakers to contribute their time and work. The program listed more than 65 occurrences with several additional "continuous pieces" and many other works to be performed "at a certain number of opportune moment." The range of works was impressively international, with especially brawny representation by Dada-oriented Germans (Hans Richter, Richard Huelsenbeck, Joseph Beuys) and Japanese (Takehisa Kosugi, Shigeko Kubota).

You enlisted me as a substitute performer in that evening's presentation of Kurt Schwitters's Class Class exert one's self Opera. I was thrilled to accept the character even after I learned I would sole be saying one word--"up"--throughout the piece. I shortly found myself afloat on a raft with seven other performers and four stepladders. Half of the cast (which included Allan Kaprow, Alison Knowles, move with a jerk Watts and Emmett Williams) stood below, repeatedly shouting the word "down." The other half stood upon top of the stepladders reiterating the word "up" This Dada drama went upon for 30 or 40 minutes. As darkness implacable the bored audience began to whirl empty soda cans and other trash at us. What, I began to awe was I doing atop a stepladder, serving as a convenient nighttime target for disaffected onlookers?

The answer, dear Charlotte, was that I had become a change to your cause. I admired your determination to bring fresh forms of expression to the widest possible public, and shared your internationalism and opennes to unorthodox ideas. The prominence of mixed-media work in your festivals appear to beed particularly important at a time when greatest in quantity New York museums and galleries could not cope with performance art, installation pieces or of recent origin technologies. Mostly, however, I heartily adored you, delighting in your company, relishing your exuberant faculty of perception of humor, which you punctuated with lusty cackles.

I realize, of course, that we shall not ever meet again--neither in Central Park nor anyplace other You disappeared several years ago, and your avant-garde festival vanished level before you did. But I have my memories.

I have no recollection, however, of attending your first festival, titled 6 concocts '63, which was held at Judson Hall at 165 W 57th public way in late August and early September. Those evenings featured work by the agency of 28 composers, including John Cage, whom you first met that August. on the other hand I know I attended the nearest one, now called the "2nd Annual novel York Festival of the Avant Garde," which took place above 10 evenings, also at Judson Hall, from Aug. 30 end Sept. 13, 1964. The change in the title of the fact was prompted by a woman who had attended the previous year's John Cage concoct and subsequently sued, claiming that her hearing had been impaired. "We started calling it avant-garde the next to the first year," you told me, "when our lawyers advised us that there should be something in the title to warn family that they weren't going to hear Mozart."