It’s not for nothing that a baby’s first word is frequently “Dada.”
Dada was also the name given to an avant-garde arts movement that sprang up in the late ‘teens and early ‘20s in response to the horrors of the First World War. Nonsense and irrationality were embraced as forms of protest, holding up a funhouse mirror to the alleged reason and rationality that had plunged the world into violence and devastation.
In 2018, characteristics of the movement, which had once been regarded as scandalous, have now practically been absorbed into the mainstream. As pianist Guy Livingston is only too happy to point out, the legacy of Dada is all around us. Unfortunately, so are the influences that spurred it into existence.
On today’s Noontime Concert on The Classical Network, we’ll hear highlights from Livingston’s presentation-with-recital, “Dada at the Movies,” which was given on October 17 at the Baruch Performing Arts Center in New York City.
The program relates Dada’s last stand, the movement’s most famous event – which, ironically, also spelled its demise. On July 6, 1923, the poet and performance artist Tristan Tzara hosted “Soirée du Coeur à Barbe” (“Evening of the Bearded Heart”) at the Théâtre Michel. The presentation, which included a play and three films, devolved into a good old fashioned Parisian riot. The result was that the Dadaists, many of whose movements were limited by confining costumes, were routed by the Surrealists. Police were summoned, arms were broken, and people were hurled from the stage.
According to Livingston’s program note, “Dadaism is now 102 years old, but is newly relevant. The turmoil of our political world, our dissatisfaction with institutions, the seeming randomness of daily life in our era; and the confusion over reality and fiction find ready echoes in Dada art.”
The noon concert will feature music by Erik Satie, Darius Milhaud, and Trenton’s Bad Boy of Music, George Antheil. Livingston, probably the world’s foremost interpreter of Antheil’s keyboard works, researched the program at Princeton University and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.
Since the original program was so closely tied up with visuals – video, props, and costumes – it required some judicious pruning for radio. Some of the lengthier spoken segments, especially those in foreign languages, have been excised. However, all of the music remains, as well as a few passages in which Livingston expounds on the paradoxically whimsical though deadly serious and strangely profound movement that was Dada.
Following today’s broadcast concert, we’ll also hear Erwin Schulhoff’s Dadaist ballet “Die Mondsüchtige” (“The Moonstruck”), in which a somnambulist dances across the rooftops of Prague with a figure identified as “The Moon Dandy.”
Even adults will exclaim “Dada!” beginning at 12:00 EST. Stick around, as I too devolve into surreality, until 4:00 p.m., on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.