Panel text reads:
Lou Harrison, Nicholas Cernovitch and I had our own Black Mountain Reunion with the Oakland Ballet. Lou wrote the music, Nick designed the lights, & I choreographed the dance & designed the costumes and set. The backdrop was also the score for the dance: “Ludwig and LC”
Most of my memories center around the dining room, where we’d come to eat, help cook & wash dishes, have dance classes, meetings & performances. How many different ways can you cook slimy okra? First time I saw Nick, he was having a “social tea bag swirl” on the porch. He held a wet tea bag by it’s label, & twirled it ‘til it flew loose from its string, and if you were lucky landed on someone else. Then he put a slice of white bread on his head and dumped a glass of milk over it, and him. It was love at first sight! One day I caught him sneering at a poor art student who said there was no real black in nature. “What about coal?”, he said, morning glory seeds, or…”. I loved his beautiful movie of Katherine Litz, projected into an upper corner of the room onto 3 surfaces, 2 walls & ceiling. Katy had the most beautiful hands. I could watch her forever. “Fire in the snow”, “The story of love from fear to flight”, and falling asleep, and nearly falling off the chair, in “Fall of a leaf”. In one evening entertainment, “Occupé toi de Brunhilde”, she was accompanied by a dragon made of kutsu [sic] vines, “I’m draggin’ my dragon around”. And Franz Kline’s contribution. “My father wrote the pushcart symphony”, “How does it go?” Nick asked. “It doesn’t go”, Franz said, “you gotta push it”. And Charles Olson costumed in the big coffee urn reading poetry, often at night Viola Farber, Nick & I would sit quiety on the outside sites, listening to David Tudor, rip through incredibly difficult pieces (Chopin, Lisz, Gottschalk) with a brilliance that was exhilarating. I first drove down with David and M.C. Richards, Freeling in the back of the exposed car, to visit Lou at thanksgiving. I was shocked when some students, on the way back to the kitchen, [] their turkey bones into Karen Karnes & David Weinrib’s beautiful pottery show. To Jay Watt’s excuse for not doing his assignment, “I’m dying”. Louresponded, “We are all dying”. The summer I was in Merce Cunningham’s company, I acted as “entertainer”. At a nearby mill I bought yards & yards of cotton at 10¢ a yard and dyed it sky blue for a cyclorama and wings. Those days, at breakfast, I’d announce, “I’m boiling up a batch of purple dye, who wants their underwear purple?’ I also designed the program for John Cage’s “Sonatas and Interludes”. It had a long program note that went, “the first sonata is followed by an interlude followed by the second sonata followed by an interlude followed by a third sonata followed by… etc I went to the print shop and set the whole text in the smallest possible type (8 pt) the type was so small, I had to use a magnifying glass and tweezers, and yes it filled the cigarette paper I had printed it on. It was a hand lever press, and I had to peel each delicate sheet off very carefully so as not to tear the tissue, because it was stuck to the inked type. When I stacked all the programs up on the table near the entrance they were less than half an inch high I placed matches and a bowl of tobacco next to them on the table. I arranged the seats in a circle looking in, with an ashtray on each seat, so the audience could smoke their programs as they listened to the program. If someone hasn’t smoke [sic] theirs, I’d love to have one, or a photo copy of it. Remy Charlip
Lou Harrison, Nicholas Cernovitch and I had our own Black Mountain Reunion with the Oakland Ballet. Lou wrote the music, Nick designed the lights, & I choreographed the dance & designed the costumes and set. The backdrop was also the score for the dance: “Ludwig and LC”
Most of my memories center around the dining room, where we’d come to eat, help cook & wash dishes, have dance classes, meetings & performances. How many different ways can you cook slimy okra? First time I saw Nick, he was having a “social tea bag swirl” on the porch. He held a wet tea bag by it’s label, & twirled it ‘til it flew loose from its string, and if you were lucky landed on someone else. Then he put a slice of white bread on his head and dumped a glass of milk over it, and him. It was love at first sight! One day I caught him sneering at a poor art student who said there was no real black in nature. “What about coal?”, he said, morning glory seeds, or…”. I loved his beautiful movie of Katherine Litz, projected into an upper corner of the room onto 3 surfaces, 2 walls & ceiling. Katy had the most beautiful hands. I could watch her forever. “Fire in the snow”, “The story of love from fear to flight”, and falling asleep, and nearly falling off the chair, in “Fall of a leaf”. In one evening entertainment, “Occupé toi de Brunhilde”, she was accompanied by a dragon made of kutsu [sic] vines, “I’m draggin’ my dragon around”. And Franz Kline’s contribution. “My father wrote the pushcart symphony”, “How does it go?” Nick asked. “It doesn’t go”, Franz said, “you gotta push it”. And Charles Olson costumed in the big coffee urn reading poetry, often at night Viola Farber, Nick & I would sit quiety on the outside sites, listening to David Tudor, rip through incredibly difficult pieces (Chopin, Lisz, Gottschalk) with a brilliance that was exhilarating. I first drove down with David and M.C. Richards, Freeling in the back of the exposed car, to visit Lou at thanksgiving. I was shocked when some students, on the way back to the kitchen, [] their turkey bones into Karen Karnes & David Weinrib’s beautiful pottery show. To Jay Watt’s excuse for not doing his assignment, “I’m dying”. Louresponded, “We are all dying”. The summer I was in Merce Cunningham’s company, I acted as “entertainer”. At a nearby mill I bought yards & yards of cotton at 10¢ a yard and dyed it sky blue for a cyclorama and wings. Those days, at breakfast, I’d announce, “I’m boiling up a batch of purple dye, who wants their underwear purple?’ I also designed the program for John Cage’s “Sonatas and Interludes”. It had a long program note that went, “the first sonata is followed by an interlude followed by the second sonata followed by an interlude followed by a third sonata followed by… etc I went to the print shop and set the whole text in the smallest possible type (8 pt) the type was so small, I had to use a magnifying glass and tweezers, and yes it filled the cigarette paper I had printed it on. It was a hand lever press, and I had to peel each delicate sheet off very carefully so as not to tear the tissue, because it was stuck to the inked type. When I stacked all the programs up on the table near the entrance they were less than half an inch high I placed matches and a bowl of tobacco next to them on the table. I arranged the seats in a circle looking in, with an ashtray on each seat, so the audience could smoke their programs as they listened to the program. If someone hasn’t smoke [sic] theirs, I’d love to have one, or a photo copy of it. Remy Charlip
Artwork: 1995.76.1
Backdrop and Score for Ludwig and Lou for the Oakland Ballet
This work was created for the 1995 exhibition Remembering Black Mountain College curated by Mary Emma Harris in conjunction with Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center and the BMC alumni reunion organized by Mary Holden Thompson, founding director of BMCM+AC.
24 x 18 inches
In copyright
Gift of Remy Charlip
Remy Charlip, Backdrop and Score for Ludwig and Lou for the Oakland Ballet, 1995. Poster and printed text on foam board. Collection of Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center. Gift of the artist.
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