Meet Joseph James Simeone, dancer with Merce Cunningham's Repertory Group, and award-winning portrait painter. He has the rare experience of working each day, one on one, with the choreographic genius who created his own technique and radicalized an entire generation of dancers the world over.

Finis: When did you first start dancing?

Joseph: When I was 19, around where I grew up, in Madison, Connecticut.

Finis: A lot of male modern dancers start late, for various reasons. What're yours?

Joseph: I had been on a different career path. I wanted to be a painter.

Finis: You're the first painter/dancer we've interviewed; what kind of painting?

Joseph: Portrait work. I received The National Scholastic Art & Writing Award when I was 15. My work has shown at The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Avery Fisher Hall, and the John McEnroe Gallery. My work sold quite well, and I thought it was going to be my life.

Finis: So what made you do something different?

Joseph: It was a progression from painting to sculpture to puppetry to an interest in movement. I guess I first became interested in movement on canvas, and that led to movement in three dimensions. I always had great ambitions, and still do. After taking a few months of ballet with Ching Hosier in Hartford, I decided to audition for Juilliard.

Finis: That was gutsy, considering most people applying to Juilliard have had years and years of dance study . . .

Joseph: Well, I was cut at my first audition. Ben Harkarvy, who was then the director, told me that I had a rare ability to perform, but that I needed to get a strong technique. He led me to Ernesto Corvino for ballet, and Laura Glenn for Limon Technique. They were a great inspiration to me and kept me going. Every day for a year, I took a two-hour train ride to NYC, took class, and then took the train home. A year later, I was accepted into Juilliard's Dance Division.

Finis: Who were your teachers at Juilliard?

Joseph: Ben Harkarvy and Andrea Corvino for ballet; Laura Glenn for Limon; Therese Capucilli and Christine Dakin for Graham; and Carolyn Adams for Taylor, among others. At Juilliard, I got to dance ballets by such choreographers as Jiri Kylian, Jose Limon, Ohad Naharin, Lar Lubovitch, Anthony Tudor and Paul Taylor. My favorite role was in Kylian's Sech Tanze.

Finis: What happened after you graduated from Juilliard?

Joseph: I went to London to work with Ballet Rambert. But after getting there, I found I missed my family and New York. More importantly, while at Rambert, I discovered my interest in Cunningham. That summer, in NYC, I attended the Cunningham intensive, taught by Carol Teitelbaum, a former company member. I loved it! It fit my body like no other technique I had studied. It had the lines and strength of classical ballet with a precise movement philosophy that really organized my body in a new way.

Finis: Did that lead to your getting into the repertory company?

Joseph: After that summer course, Robert Swinston, who is Merce's assistant, offered me a position with Merce's "Repertory Group" (A small group of dancers, which fluctuates in size and currently consists of three other dancers). This group, started by Chris Komar in 1982, has always been the primary feeding ground for the main company. During the past three years, with Merce traveling less than he used to — he's 86 years old — but still creating new works, the Repertory Group has been used by Merce in his process of making movement materials, i.e. dance phrases. Later, the material is transferred to company members before becoming part of a new dance. While the company tours without Merce or is laid off, he is free to work at a slow, steady pace to create the new steps.

Finis: So, from the very start, you were selected to work with the Master himself. What an honor! How did you feel?

Joseph: I was so nervous! I was fresh out of college, and didn't really know Merce's technique, and suddenly I was standing in front of this genius of modern movement, rehearsing roles in his major ballets. I think Inlets 2 was the first piece I learned, but in the first week alone, Robert and my colleagues must have taught me five or six ballets, not including various solos and duets. Merce was very understanding, and gave me some comforting advice I have never forgotten.

Finis: Which was . . .

Joseph: I was dancing in a piece called Scenario, and I had to execute a multiple en dedans turn à la seconde with my torso tilting and arching and curving, at the same time moving my arms from over head to behind to the side. It's a nightmare on one leg. I struggled to perfect the movement, so that I could execute the step flawlessly. Finally, I asked Merce if it was OK that I was struggling with the turn, and couldn't do it perfectly. Merce said that he thought the struggle was what was important, and that things that seem easy to do aren't always interesting to look at. He also reminded me, "everyone learns from a struggle."

Finis: Right!

Joseph: For Merce, it's about the process. Merce doesn't make "story" dances, so there aren't any characters or emotions to portray. The only thing the dancer has to do is the choreography.

Finis: Yes, a lot like Balanchine. You can get an emotional reaction from what you're seeing, but it isn't necessarily because the dancer is "emoting." The movement may or may not tell a story. It's all in the eye of the beholder.

Joseph: And in the ear of the listener, Merce's view on electronic music versus instrumental music was another reason I was drawn to him as an artist.

Finis: Please talk about this, since first timers to a Cunningham performance may be very surprised, even discomforted, by Merce's musical choices.

Joseph: Merce must have been the first choreographer to use "Indeterministic music" due to the fact his longtime musical collaborator was John Cage, the composer, and the person considered to be the inventor of this style of music and school of thought.

Finis: Explain "Indeterministic music."

Joseph: It is exactly what it sounds like: a way of composing and or playing music based on chance. The composer provides structure, but totally removes himself from creative decisions. These decisions are them made by chance, the performer or to even more unbiased musicians, such as machines. For example, a composer might give each musician five scores of music, but when the conductor's baton falls, they can choose which score to play, when to stop and for how long, and in some cases they can even choose tempo. In Cage's Imaginary Landscape No.4, twelve radios all play at the same time, but each is tuned to a different station. Although this may seem chaotic, Indeterministic music has moments of unparalleled beauty.

Finis: Frankly, I love watching Merce's choreography, but I have trouble listening to the electronic sounds — why do you think Merce chooses to use this type of music?

Joseph: Merce has told us that he feels instrumental music (music played on an orchestral instrument by a live performer) is innately "on the muscle." Meaning, the scope of musical variation in speed and rhythm is limited by muscular contraction and release. However, electronic music, Merce says, is played "on the nerve," which is not constrained by these physical limitations.

Finis: How do you learn and rehearse Merce's choreography?

Joseph: All rehearsals are conducted in silence.

Finis: Well, how do you know what to do, and when to do it?

Joseph: We practice — a lot! For a man who creates his movement by flipping coins and rolling dice, when the curtain rises on a Cunningham work, very little is actually left to chance. The dances are rehearsed with a stop watch and are not allowed to run more than a few seconds shy of, or over the designated length. Tempos and rhythms are learned and duplicated, exactly, in every rehearsal and performance without any aid beside the dancer's internal metronome. Visual cues then become extremely important and an absolute awareness of your fellow dancer is a must. When we're not able to see each other, we listen for oral cues, which is really a dancer saying quietly the word "cue." However, Merce is not interested in Rockette-like precision. If you start the same phrase with someone, then because you're dancing with the same rhythm and tempo, you'll pretty much be together, but minor variations from dancer to dancer only add another layer in visual texture.

Finis: Has Merce really created movement by flipping coins and rolling dice? I've worked with lots of choreographers, but no one has ever done that!

Joseph: Merce's work with chance has spanned the majority of his choreographic career; therefore this is a broad topic that should really be investigated further by readers. There is plenty of information available on how Merce was using chance at the different stages in his development. At one time or another, Merce has used dice, coins, and the computer when making choreographic decisions. For instance, Merce can make the coins determine something as simple as where the dancer moves in space, or where they will exit. On the more complex side, he can also create a phrase of choreography itself through chance: by flipping once to see if the head is looking right or left, another flip to see if the arms are high or low, front or back, bent or straight, so on and so on. It is easy to see how using the tool of chance can make the choreographic process very arduous. Regardless, once Merce has this movement, he then works without chance to refine the piece into a cohesive work. Suite By Chance, in 1953 was the first work made entirely by "chance operations."

Finis: Does your brain ever get tired?

Joseph: Not yet! We even perform the dancer's nightmare: You're onstage before an audience in costume and make up, and all of a sudden you're expected to dance to music you've never heard before! You are to make choices on how and where to dance, in what Merce has designed as a game. For example, Canfield is a dance game in which the performers are allowed to make on-stage decisions about whether or not we take place in the dance, and how we take place in the dance.

Finis: The thrill of the moment!

Joseph: You know, I've seen audience members say to Merce, "I don't know what I should watch; I don't feel I can take it all in." And Merce says it's the same thing as television today; you have the small picture in the corner, and the big picture, you're on the phone, car horns are outside……we are all multi-taskers. Merce's dances are multi-sensory experiences.

Finis: With so much going on when you perform Merce's works, have you had any scary onstage experiences?

Joseph: Just this past summer, when it was very hot, I was dancing Merce's role in Summerspace, an extremely grueling 20 minute ballet. There was no air conditioning, and inside the theater, it felt like 110 degrees. To make it worse, the piano music is very quiet, so they turned off all the fans. My skin felt like it was on fire. There was sweat all over the floor, and it was all I could do to keep my balance. I had another scary time when I was doing a show for Projects for a New Millennium. I was on a zip line 200 feet above a granite quarry for a five minute aerial solo. I choreographed the show, and needless to say, while I was hanging in the air, I regretted some of my bolder movement decisions.

Finis: Live and learn — and learn and live! What's happening right now?

Joseph: I'm continuing to work with Merce, and hopefully he will continue making new material on the group.

Finis: What is that like? You're making dance history, you know. You're working one on one with a great, great genius of dance.

Joseph: Merce directs us from a chair, speaking through the steps with gestures and sing song rhythms, taking one thing at a time. He often starts with a rhythm in the feet, that we may rehearse moving forward and back until it is clear. Then he'll change the pattern of the footwork or spacial directions. From there he adds torso, and then arms, and maybe even focus changes. Then he starts shaping this base movement into choreography. Most of the time, this means molding your relationship to the other dancer, or to the space in general. Throughout each rehearsal, Merce is extremely patient and understanding. It is an honor to work with him and to have come to know him as a choreographer and as a person. He has a contagious enthusiasm for life and is relentless on his quest to find new ways of moving and thinking of movement. The priceless moments of working for him have been his many spontaneous anecdotes. During the rehearsal of a work he will sometimes muse on how or why the dance was created. And there is nothing to compare with a warm smile from him or a nod when you have finished dancing your heart out to say "good job."

Finis: You are so lucky! But I wonder, do you miss painting?

Joseph: I've started painting a series of portraits of each member of the company for a gallery in Connecticut. And, since John McEnroe's gallery has closed, I'm hoping to find another gallery partnership here in New York.

Finis: Based on the way everything has turned out so far, I'd say all you have to do is keep moving! We look forward to your next performance, and your next exhibit. Thank you, Joe!