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Opening to "Time"By Charles Atlas with Merce Cunningham

September 17, 2003

“Tap-dancing is a way of articulating time, and it’s a long time since I did it,” says pioneering dancer/choreographer Merce Cunningham in the introduction to Time created by Charles Atlas.

Cunningham speaks of his childhood dance teacher, an early influence, who made a strong impression with her tap-dancing, including a remarkable moment when “she did it on the side of her foot. I never forgot it.” Cunningham begins to tap while seated, allowing the syncopated rhythms of his dance to set the tone for the episode.

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Charles Atlas is a filmmaker and video artist who has created numerous works for stage, screen, museum, and television. Atlas is a pioneer in the development of media-dance, a genre in which original performance work is created directly for the camera. Many of Atlas’s works have been collaborations with choreographers, dancers, and performers, including Yvonne Rainer, Michael Clark, Douglas Dunn, Marina Abramovic, Diamanda Galas, John Kelly, and Leigh Bowery. Atlas acted as Consulting Director for “Art in the Twenty-First Century” (Seasons 2 through 5), creating the original opening programs for each hour-long segment of Season 2, as well as supervising the “Stories,” “Loss and Desire,” “Memory,” “Play,” “Protest,” and “Paradox” episodes.