LOS ANGELES FESTIVAL : INDEPENDENT MOVEMENT, MUSIC

One of the most enduring and influential artistic collaborations in the latter half of this century has involved Merce Cunningham and John Cage, those apostles of modern dance and modern music.

So it does not come as any surprise the Los Angeles Festival’s “Cage Celebration” this week includes an appearance by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company (probably without Cage) at the Japan American Theater on Sunday: the day after Cage’s 75th birthday.

Cunningham, born in Centralia, Wash., and Cage, born in Los Angeles, met more than 50 years ago in Seattle. The choreographer was then a student in a dance class at Cornish College given by Bonnie Bird, a former dancer with Martha Graham, and the composer was a class pianist. Cage was also the conductor of a percussion orchestra, which he asked Cunningham to join.

But it was not until the 1940s, when the two were in New York, that they began to work together. Cunningham had preceded Cage there by some years and was a well-known member of the Graham company.

“John and I decided to give a program together,” Cunningham recalled. “Half would be his music and the other half solos by me, for which he would write the music. The theater was a small one on 16th Street, the old Humphrey-Weidman Studio.

“I can’t remember exactly how we first worked. But we work independently. I had a time structure for the dances, and he used that to make the music. Yes, he knew something about the dances, but he wasn’t writing to the dance. No, we didn’t think about making a revolution. This is the way we wanted to work.”

As much as the juxtaposition of unlikely movements is at the heart of Cunningham choreography, the juxtaposition of unlikely sounds is central to Cage’s music. It is therefore not surprising these explorers of the new should find each other so compatible.

In the early days, Cunningham said, he and Cage discussed their work a lot with each other.

“As the years went by, there was less and less discussion,” Cunningham said. “We worked more separately. I didn’t know why he made a sound. A had to make a movement. I continued to make dances and he continued to make music for them.” Eventually Cunningham acquired a small company and the two toured the world, Cage acting as conductor and sometimes a one-man orchestra.

Other composers were invited to work for the company, and Cage became the company’s music director. (He is no longer music director, and two summers ago he stopped touring with the company.)

The process is always the same, Cunningham said. He makes the dances and the composers write the music. The two elements come together for the first time either at the dress rehearsal or sometimes, the choreographer chuckled, the night of the performance.

“Different composers ask different questions. John usually asked if I had a time structure. He also wanted to know how many dancers would be in the piece.”

Only rarely, Cunningham said, did he find the music disagreeable. “Often I was so involved in the dance I wasn’t very aware of the music at first. We never rehearsed to it. On occasion the music was distracting--the music is sometimes distracting in conventional dance. I think the averages are about the same.”

Cunningham openly acknowledges Cage’s influence in making dance independent of music and expresses no desire to change his way of working. “I like this way of exploring. There are so many avenues still open.”

The most notable recent collaboration between Cunningham and Cage was “Roaratorio: An Irish Circus on ‘Finnegans’ Wake’ ” which opened the next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music last October. In this case, the music came first and remains dominant throughout the piece. Cunningham’s choreography is more quiet.

On Sunday there may be no collaboration at all. Cunningham said he will be presenting one of his now famous “events,” the form he invented in Vienna 23 years ago. The composers scheduled that night to play their own music are David Tudor, Takehisa Kosugi and Michael Pugliese.

“I hope John will play,” Cunningham said. “But he is involved in so many other things I don’t know. I hope so. It would be nice.”