The first picture is of Judith Dunn, Robert Dunn's wife performing Motorcycle, with Steve Paxton in the back, in one of Robert Dunn's works at Judson Dance.

This photo is of Steve Paxton in "Rialto" in 1964 at Judson Dance Sanctuary. 

All about Dunn

John Cage asked Robert Dunn to teach a class in choreography and composition at the Merce Cunningham studio in 1960. Dunn was not a dancer, he mostly accompanied for Merece's studio. He gained his musical knowledge by studying at the New England Conservatory and at Boston Conservatory of music. In 1958, Dunn performed in Boston and was recognized and asked to work at the American Dance Festival in Connecticut. After this, he moved to New York and worked with artists such as Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, José Limón, and Paul Taylor. Dunn was also influenced by Louis Horst. Two of John Cage's principles he used were the use of noise and silence in music and his move towards theatrics in musical performance.

    The approach Dunn used for his classes was most like John Cage's. Most alike was the chance procedures. However, he added assignments for the choreography students, " materials and ideas put forth for their possible suggestiveness to further work." He also believed in Cage's idea about musical form: "Structure in music is its divisibility into successive parts from phrases to long sections. Form is content, the continuity.  Method is the means of controlling the continuity from note to note.  The material of music is sound and silence. Integrating these is composing." 

   The writing of dances- or the "graphy"in choreography as he called it, is crucial to the compositional process. This is not in the sense of recording what the dance exactly was, but rather to objectify the composition process.   Paxton remembers Dunn's style as being Zen-Like. Dunn was very into Tai-Chi and different art forms of the contemporary genre. He liked to pose questions to his students out of this mind set and out of the basic elements of structure and method.

   "It follows therefore that no single dance is about any one idea or story, but rather a variety of things that in performance fuse together and decide the nature of the whole experience."- Dunn

Dunn stressed the value of ordinary and the value of stillness. This is very similar to pedestrian type movements that Paxton uses and that are still used as prompts of improvisation in modern dance today. He was also very interested in the idea of repetition and repetitive time structures. Yvonne Rainer took a class from Dunn and this may be a source of her fascination with repetition and the emotions it evokes. Dunn was well known for stressing working quickly and clarifying the concepts behind each dance.

-Information from Terpsichore in Sneakers Post Modern Dance- Sally Banes

Democracy's Body Judson Dance Theater 1962-1964-Sally Banes

Dancing of Paxton- focus of the spine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4JcXB04UOg

Dunn

Music was a big part of Dunn's life. He was great influenced by john Cage and applied his concepts into his compositions and accompaniment of classes. He mostly contributed in the post-modern time in New York. In the 50's and 60's some political and social events that were happening included; segregation becoming illegal, JFK's assassination, and the sending of troops to Vietnam. He believed that the sense of human relationships and social occasions  arise in the interface of art and life. He was also very aware of the music, poetry, and literature around him and he let that influence his work.