From The 'Fresh Air' Archives: Dancer Gwen Verdon

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm TV critic David Bianculli, sitting in for Terry Gross. Today's show is dominated by song and dance. First up, we'll listen back to an archive interview with Gwen Verdon, the Broadway actress and dancer who electrified audiences in everything from "Can-Can" and "Damn Yankees" to "Chicago." Along with one of her husbands, choreographer and film director Bob Fosse, she's the subject of a new FX miniseries called "Fosse/Verdon," which premieres next Tuesday. Let's begin with my review of FX's "Fosse/Verdon."

If you're a musical theater fan, just the title "Fosse/Verdon" is enough to make this new FX miniseries one of the most exciting TV prospects of the year. Gwen Verdon, who originated the onstage characters of Lola in "Damn Yankees" and Roxie Hart in "Chicago," was one of the best dancers on Broadway. Bob Fosse's particular style as both choreographer and movie director was dazzlingly different and, captured in such films as "Cabaret," still crackles with energy. This eight-part drama sets out to tell how they met, collaborated, fell in love, got married and had a daughter. But that's only part of the story, which is about a relationship that keeps going long after the marriage has been dissolved.

Two of the executive producers of "Fosse/Verdon" should be noted at the start. One is Nicole Fosse, the real-life daughter of Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon. Another is Lin-Manuel Miranda, whose Broadway success with "Hamilton" has been nothing short of phenomenal. His presence alone suggests that the musical numbers recreated here will be done with precision and reverence, and they are. And while her presence dictates that this biography of her parents is authorized, it is not an entirely flattering portrayal of either of them. The portrayals, however, are so good, it's almost a relief.

Gwen Verdon is played by Michelle Williams, who's come a long way from the WB's "Dawson's Creek," and she was good even there. In "Manchester By The Sea," "Brokeback Mountain" and "My Week With Marilyn," she's shown her versatility and sensitivity. And when I saw her take a turn starring in the recent Broadway revival of "Cabaret," she was one of the best Sallys (ph) I saw at the Roundabout Theatre, and I saw them all. And speaking of versatility, Bob Fosse is played by Sam Rockwell, who's done terrific work in everything from "Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind" and "Galaxy Quest" to "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri."

In "Fosse/Verdon," these two inhabit their roles completely and convincingly. The story isn't rolled out sequentially. It starts with the filming of "Sweet Charity" and keeps hopping backwards and forwards, revealing bits of their past a scene at a time. So I'm not doing any spoiling here by presenting a scene from when after the couple is separated but still seeking support and advice from each other. He visits her after a day working on the movie "Cabaret," and she welcomes him warmly at first, but not for long. Any worries about this drama taking it too easy on the characters are instantly alleviated.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "FOSSE/VERDON")

SAM ROCKWELL: (As Bob Fosse) I saw a cut in the movie.

MICHELLE WILLIAMS: (As Gwen Verdon) What's wrong with the movie?

ROCKWELL: (As Bob Fosse) Oh, just a few things. The numbers are flat. The story doesn't make - there is no story. What is the story? I'm going to see if they'll let me reshoot the whole thing. You think they'll spring for it?

WILLIAMS: (As Gwen Verdon) You felt the same way after you saw the first cut of "Charity."

ROCKWELL: (As Bob Fosse) Yeah, look how well that turned out. I was thinking maybe you could come to the editing room for a few weeks, you know, and maybe you'd see some things that I don't see. I'm feeling a little lost right now.

WILLIAMS: (As Gwen Verdon) I can't.

ROCKWELL: (As Bob Fosse) Why not?

WILLIAMS: (As Gwen Verdon) Didn't I tell you? I found a play.

ROCKWELL: (As Bob Fosse) Oh.

WILLIAMS: (As Gwen Verdon) I'm going to be in rehearsals.

ROCKWELL: (As Bob Fosse) A play, yes. A straight play?

WILLIAMS: (As Gwen Verdon) Yes.

ROCKWELL: (As Bob Fosse) Oh.

WILLIAMS: (As Gwen Verdon) So it's called "Children! Children!" It's from a brand-new writer. It's a terrific part, and then the play is just phenomenal.

ROCKWELL: (As Bob Fosse) Well, that's - congratulations. When do you start?

WILLIAMS: (As Gwen Verdon) Mel is setting up a meeting with the director first. I just want to make sure we have a good rapport and we can establish trust 'cause it's a difficult role.

ROCKWELL: (As Bob Fosse) You're going to hate it.

WILLIAMS: (As Gwen Verdon) I don't know why you would say that to me.

ROCKWELL: (As Bob Fosse) When's the last time you acted?

WILLIAMS: (As Gwen Verdon) An hour ago when you walked in the door. How'd I do?

ROCKWELL: (As Bob Fosse) That's very funny.

BIANCULLI: FX has made half of "Fosse/Verdon" available for preview. That's enough to recommend it highly, but not quite enough to allow for the rendering of a final verdict. I really like that it makes room for some of Fosse's famous friends, like Neil Simon and Paddy Chayefsky, played respectively by Nate Corddry and Norbert Leo Butz. And while I'm intrigued by others, like Margaret Qualley as Ann Reinking, I need to see more to see how this all plays out. That's because "Fosse/Verdon," written and directed by a tag team of other producers and executive producers - including Thomas Kail, Steven Levenson, Joel Fields and Charlotte Stoudt - is all over the place, emotionally and artistically. It recreates scenes from classic stage shows and movies while framing them within a frenetic, sometimes fantasy narrative. That's exactly what Bob Fosse himself did while directing the 1979 movie "All That Jazz," which was his barely fictionalized story of his own physical breakdown while juggling work on several simultaneous projects.

This FX series isn't just an homage to "All That Jazz." It plays almost like an expanded director's cut, with Verdon's half of the story given equal prominence. But the difference is Bob Fosse's "All That Jazz" was all Bob Fosse's vision and voice. And I know how he ended "All That Jazz" - boldly and brilliantly. With "Fosse/Verdon," I still haven't seen anything from the "Chicago" musical or anything else from the later years, yet I'm very eager to see what "Fosse/Verdon" presents in its second half because the first handful of episodes, like the musical numbers they recreate, are surging with creativity and excitement. It's showtime.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MEIN HERR")

KELLI BARRETT: (Singing) Don't dab your eye, mein herr, or wonder why, mein herr. I've always said that I was a rover. You mustn't knit your brow. You should've known by now...
DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

And now, as promised, Gwen Verdon herself. She was a four-time Tony Award winner and the standard against which many Broadway dancers were measured. A 1959 Time Magazine review of the musical "Redhead," directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse, described Verdon like this - quote, "her articulate hands, toes and torso are parts of speech. Her body is an erotic spoof, spelling sex in quotes as she over-tilts a wayward hip or dislocates an amorous shoulder." Terry Gross spoke with Gwen Verdon in 1993. First, let's hear her sing one of the numbers from "Sweet Charity."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "IF MY FRIENDS COULD SEE ME NOW")

GWEN VERDON: (Singing) If they could see me now, that little gang of mine. I'm eating fancy chow and drinking fancy wine. I'd like those stumble bums to see for a fact the kind of top drawer, first-rate chums I attract. All I can say is, wowee (ph), look at where I am. Tonight I landed, pow, right in a pot of jam. What a setup, holy cow. They'd never believe it if my friends could see me now.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

TERRY GROSS, BYLINE: Now, I read about you that you had rickets when you were very young.

VERDON: Yes.

GROSS: And that damaged your legs.

VERDON: You're born that way. I guess it's from some kind of malnutrition. But it - with corrective exercise, not surgery, which they wanted to do - and my mother wouldn't allow it. But the orthopedic surgeon explained to her that one muscle was too long on the outside of the leg. And the inner muscle on the leg - no, that one was too long, and the outside one was too short. So what a lousy knee joint to swing out so my legs made an X, if you can picture that. Anyway, she decided to, through exercise, shorten the inner muscle and stretch the outside one.

GROSS: And did that work?

VERDON: It sure did, that and corrective boots. They never operated.

GROSS: What did the corrective boots look like?

VERDON: Oh, God. They were just dreadful. They were big, high-top brown things and the heel was very crooked. It would make me walk on the outsides of my feet so that the inner muscle would stay short. I must say it worked because within, oh, I would say two to four years, my legs looked straight. Though, I had to wear these shoes - corrective shoes, whenever I was home or in school.

GROSS: I don't understand how you were able to dance with your knee - with your legs in such bad shape and having to wear these corrective boots all the time.

VERDON: Oh, no, I didn't dance with them on. And I did all kinds of the exercises. My mother kept saying, yes, you're doing ballet. But instead of my heels being together in a turned-out position, I was always doing everything with my toes as much together as possible, which would keep stretching that outside muscle.

GROSS: So you did almost corrective dance?

VERDON: Oh, absolutely.

GROSS: I guess - I'm wondering if you were ever self-conscious when you started to dance on stage since you grew up so self-conscious about your legs.

VERDON: You know, I was so young when I began performing that I don't remember being self-conscious. I do remember in 1959, I think it was - again, it was "Redhead". And it was the first time I ever read reviews. And I never read reviews on any of the other shows. And in "Redhead," they kept calling me a great beauty - an Arlene Dahl type, who is a great beauty. And I - then I became very embarrassed, very - well, I did develop a stage fright.

GROSS: After that review, you developed stage fright?

VERDON: Yes.

GROSS: Why did that review lead to stage - it's such a flattering review. Why did it lead to stage fright?

VERDON: It's very flattering, but I've never thought - and I still don't, and I know it's the truth. I am not a great beauty. I feel like one on stage, but I felt like an absolute fool being compared to Arlene Dahl. And I thought those critics must be sitting in the back row of the third balcony.

GROSS: (Laughter) So that made you feel like a fraud?

VERDON: Yes.

GROSS: Well, when you started getting stage fright, what were the symptoms, and how did you deal with it?

VERDON: I would shake. My mouth would go dry, and I was afraid to be on stage.

GROSS: Who - would somebody have to talk you onto stage?

VERDON: I'd get out there and then panic.

GROSS: What's a time when you actually panicked on stage?

VERDON: It, again, was during "Redhead." And I would be out there with the entire cast, and everyone would leave. And I would have to sing a song. And sometimes I would just walk off and get my aunt, with whom I had to play the next scene. And I just skipped the song. I couldn't sing it.

GROSS: What would the director say when you did that?

VERDON: He was my husband.

(LAUGHTER)

VERDON: He understood. He sent me to an excellent doctor, and I was fine. But then I was also given an article to read about Laurence Olivier, who also had stage fright and would turn his back. Everyone thought, what a unique way of playing - being an actor, to be able to turn your back on the audience and play a scene. So whenever I would get this feeling - because by that time, I'd be afraid of being afraid. And when that would happen, I would turn my back and sing the song. And it worked.

GROSS: Did people in the audience assume that this was innovative stage direction?

VERDON: Well, if it worked for Laurence Olivier, it was going to certainly have to work for me.

BIANCULLI: Terry Gross speaking with Gwen Verdon in 1993. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF CY COLEMAN SONG, "BIG SPENDER")

BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR.

Let's get back to Terry's 1993 interview with Gwen Verdon. The new FX series "Fosse/Verdon," premiering next Tuesday, is about Verdon and her collaborator and former husband, choreographer Bob Fosse. Here is

Gwen Verdon in a show stopping number from "Damn Yankees."

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DAMN YANKEES")

VERDON: (As Lola, singing) Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets. And little man, little Lola wants you. Make up your mind to have no regrets. Recline yourself. Resign yourself. You're through. I always get what I aim for, and your heart and soul is what I came for. Whatever Lola wants...

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

GROSS: I think "Damn Yankees" was the first Broadway show that you worked on with Bob Fosse who later became your husband.

VERDON: True.

GROSS: What was it like the first time you worked with him and danced to his choreography? What was different about his choreography and direction from what you had experienced before?

VERDON: The first thing that I noticed was it was so amusing. I know - I know it was sensuous. I know it was all of those things, but it was done with such a sense of humor and also done with the innocence of a child. So you weren't acting sexy. It just came out that way. And I was amazed at the training because I had excellent training in many disciplines of dance, and I was amazed at how disciplined and what was required with Bob's work.

GROSS: What was required of you that you...

VERDON: Ballet, tap, isolation, which I had learned from East Indian dancing. And, I mean, there was his humor. I had worked with Jack Cole, who always did very sensuous women. He did Gilda for that number - Gilda - from the movie "Gilda" for Rita Hayworth. I think he's probably more famous for that number, but it's not funny. And Bob would do the same kind of thing - not the same steps. But his point of view was the flip side of that. It was just making fun of being sexy, which comes out much more sexy.

GROSS: Do you feel that you played Lola, the devilish seductress, as funny?

VERDON: I played it as a child. Have you seen little girls all dressed up in their mothers' clothes...

GROSS: Mmm hmm.

VERDON: ...You know, and lipstick smeared all over their face? I did it like that.

GROSS: When you said that there was isolation required for Bob Fosse's choreography, do you mean, like, just moving one shoulder or an elbow or just, like, one part of the body?

VERDON: Yes. And it was extremely musical. That was up to Bob. I mean, the music is the groundwater, but he would catch every little thing. If you moved your little finger, there would be a ting on a triangle. So - and there was an economy to the movement. You didn't just sort of blast out and dance. It was isolation and discipline. That's the only thing I could think of.

GROSS: Would he do the moves to show you what he wanted?

VERDON: Yes. And they were hysterical. And I went and said, I don't think I can do that in high heels. So Bob put on high heels and did it, so...

GROSS: Oh, no (laughter)

VERDON: Oh, absolutely.

GROSS: (Laughter) So...

VERDON: Well, he believed me, but he had to find out for himself.

GROSS: Well, could he do it in high heels?

VERDON: Sure. He could.

GROSS: So then you were forced to do it.

VERDON: Not forced - I thought, oh, as soon as I could see how he did it in heels.

GROSS: What was the trick?

VERDON: It was not a trick. It was a certain step in "Lola" where you keep twisting. And I kept (ph) thinking the heels are - one heel is going to scrape by my other foot.

GROSS: So what was the solution he came up with?

VERDON: Just do it. You know...

GROSS: Just do it.

VERDON: And if you're turned in enough - you had to be very turned in, which worked just great for me because that's how I studied dance. That's how my mother taught me when I was 2.

GROSS: Because of your muscle problem.

VERDON: Yes.

GROSS: You worked with Bob Fosse on several musicals - "New Girl In Town," "Redhead," "Chicago," "Sweet Charity" as well as "Damn Yankees." Were there particular things that he liked to use you for that he thought of as being Gwen Verdon moves, you know, that were just saved for you?

VERDON: No. You know, because you couldn't do the same movement on somebody else, and because they're built differently and have a different point of view, it does not look the same. And Bob was very good about, I guess, using what the person had. I don't know what I've got. But I know when Annie Reinking replaced me in the show, she has great legs, and she can jump even in high-heel shoes. I was never a jumper, even barefoot. And so Bob would use this extension that Annie had and the fact that she could leap like that - great grand jete. And so he would change the steps.

GROSS: Once you and Bob Fosse were married, was it any harder or easier to work together?

VERDON: No, because I never thought of him, when we were working, as my husband. In fact, Judy Garland came backstage one time, and she said, oh, your husband's done a fabulous job. And I actually said, who?

GROSS: (Laughter).

VERDON: I don't associate that at all.

GROSS: Why was it easier to not think of him as your husband?

VERDON: I - it was not that I just did not think of him. He was the director. He was the choreographer. He wasn't my husband when we were working.

BIANCULLI: Actress and dancer Gwen Verdon speaking to Terry Gross in 1993. Her story and her complicated relationship with Bob Fosse will be dramatized beginning next week in a new FX miniseries called "Fosse/Verdon." After a break, we'll hear from another major figure in the world of dance, choreographer Merce Cunningham. And film critic Justin Chang will review the new sci-fi movie "High Life." I'm David Bianculli, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROXIE")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Stop the presses.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character, unintelligible).

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) We both reached for the gun, says Roxie.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) Dancing feet lead to sorrow, says beautiful jazz slayer.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #4: (As character) Roxie sobs, I'd give anything to bring him back.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #5: (As character) Jazz and liquor - Roxie's downfall.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #6: (As Roxie, laughter) I always wanted my name in the papers. Before Amos, I used to date this well-to-do ugly bootlegger. He used to like to take me out and show me off. Ugly guys like to do that. Once it said in the paper, gangland's Al Capelli seen with cute redheaded chorine. That was me (laughter). I clipped it out and saved it. Look; I'm going to tell you the truth, not that the truth really matters. But I'm going to tell you anyway. The thing is, see; I'm older than I ever...

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli, editor of the website TV Worth Watching, sitting in for Terry Gross. Later this month, on April 16, dance companies around the world will celebrate what would have been the 100th birthday of Merce Cunningham, one of the most influential choreographers and dancers of the 20th century. A highlight of that celebration will be the Night of 100 Solos, a coordinated performance event taking place at venues in New York, London and Los Angeles.

Cunningham's approach to dance as both a choreographer and a performer was unconventional, so much so that he's been called one of the true revolutionaries in the history of dance. Cunningham didn't choreograph movement to coincide with the rhythms of music. Instead, he preferred to have music and dance performed simultaneously yet independent of one another. It was an approach he pioneered and explored with his collaborator and life partner, composer John Cage.

Merce Cunningham died 10 years ago at the age of 90. Today, we'll listen back to an interview Terry conducted with Merce Cunningham in 1985 when he was 66. At the time, he still was a featured part of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, which he founded in 1953.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

TERRY GROSS, BYLINE: Most of us think of dance as being done to music, you know, where it - where all the movements are in sync with the rhythm of the music that it's being performed to. But you came up with the idea of simultaneous but independent dance and music. What gave you that idea?

MERCE CUNNINGHAM: Cage had this way of composing music which involved what he calls time - called a time structure. That is not - music not based on harmony or based on modulations or based on various kinds of form - theme and variation - but a sound which could exist in a length of time. And the structure, how you structured it, was through the time, not through another way. And we both thought, well, that's the one thing that really connects music and dance, is the fact they both take place in time. And if you put them together, they can take place in the same time.

So in - even in those very first solos that I made, we developed a - for each dance a different time structure within which I made the dance, and he would make the music. But that didn't imply that he was following the dance strictly but that we would meet in the structure points. That is, the sound and the dance would meet at structure points, but in between that, we could be separate. But the music, the sound, cuts the time up differently from the way the dance does. The music cuts it for the ear, and the dance cuts it for the eye.

GROSS: When you and Cage were first touring together and performing, I mean, audiences were certainly - many still aren't used to it now - but certainly then, in the early '50s, no one was used to the idea of independent dance and music, and music and the dance not telling a story. What kind of reactions did you get? Did you get booed a lot?

CUNNINGHAM: Oh, yes. (Laughter) Oh, yes, and people leaving and (laughter) - of course. And - but we also, as we toured and as I began to work with dancers and have a company - we were to tour the United States - we began to also have friends. Not many, but every place there would be a few people who would be very interested in what we had done, what we were doing and wanted to know more about it and so on.

And we tried to not only have music by John, by Cage, but music by other composers who would be interested in working in the same way. They didn't have to compose the way John does, but in the sense of this separation between the music and the dance. When we found a number of them over the years, whom - with whom we have worked of course, who have - what do you say - who have used these ideas in their way. And we have, in a sense, a master repertory of this (laughter).

GROSS: During those times when you were booed, during those early years, did you have enough belief in what you were doing to not be discouraged by the negative reactions?

CUNNINGHAM: Well, it was and remains to me an extraordinary area to work in. It seems to me constantly one can constantly be refreshed. I - at least for my - and my personal feeling's that way as I work at it. And one only has to get one's mind out of the way and then - about deciding that something is good or bad and rather allow for different things to take place, different kinds of things to take place, so that you are - or I am constantly on the point of discovering something I don't know about rather than repeating what I do know about.

GROSS: So the boos were just part of that process for you and not a real obstacle?

CUNNINGHAM: Well, they - well, yes, of course, they were interesting sometimes and difficult sometimes. And sometimes we've even had things thrown at us and all of that kind of traditional thing. And I remember a program in - I think it was in Cologne, in Germany, once with the dance company where the audience was extremely unpleasant and difficult and booed and yelled all the way through the performance. And my - I thought the company, my dancers, were wonderful. I said, we'll just keep on going. (Laughter) They were marvelous. They did (laughter).

GROSS: I bet, though, you figured out some pretty creative ways to survive on next to no money during those years when you were touring in the Volkswagen bus and performing at colleges.

CUNNINGHAM: Oh, you mean money. Oh, well...

GROSS: Yeah.

CUNNINGHAM: (Laughter) Yes. Oh, yes. There wasn't any (laughter). No. We even managed to get from one place to the other and somehow keep it going. And I - in the very - in those days when there were a few dancers - of course, there were six dancers and two musicians and one technical person. And that's all we could get in the bus, so that's what we had. And I would pay all the bills because I thought that if I gave the dancers money, it would be so little that they would maybe try to save some and not eat properly.

So I decided, no, I will pay, and they can eat what they want. I will manage that, and I will - but I will pay for it so that then they will - more likely to eat well and not get sick (laughter). And I think, on the whole, it worked out. At some point, of course, it didn't work anymore, naturally. But for a while, it did.

So we would try - and we would also, you know, not simply eat in restaurants. We had very nice times, often, difficult - of course it was difficult - but we had very good times because we would stop and eat in the parks, buy food and cook in the parks if the weather was nice. And as Carolyn Brown said once, writing about it, she said there was an awful lot of laughing (laughter).

GROSS: Do you think of the male and female body as being very different instruments?

CUNNINGHAM: Yes. They're both the same and different. First of all, you start with the fact that they have two legs and two arms and one head. That's the same. But there is a physical difference in the woman's body. The structure is different. There are kinds of movements that she can do which the man can do, but they're not the same. I mean, they don't - he can do them, certainly, and equally so the other way - that the man has a different kind of strength in his body - the way it's knit, for example, physically knit together. There are kinds of movements which both can do. And I think that's quite clear and more probably in American dancing, say, than European dancing. Although, of course, now it's common everyplace - but that American women, for instance, do steps that originally were thought only for men, and the men probably do certain things which were originally thought only for women but which now both can do. But there still is a difference because the man does it in a different way than the woman, as each person does it different from the other one.

GROSS: Are there ways that you think of yourself as using men and women differently in your dances?

CUNNINGHAM: I use them both as individuals - that is, simply as - who may be doing the same movement but not necessarily at the same time, just as you might as you - if you look at a flock of birds, in a sense, they're doing the same thing. But they don't really do the same thing. They don't do it at the same time. Then also, I take for granted that there are certain differences that will come out with any - say that - say a male body is doing something, and a female body is doing the same thing. But there are certain differences that will simply appear, to my eye, anyway. And I think that's fine. It's human.

GROSS: Well, you've talked about how you don't want a frontal emphasis in your dance. And you don't want - you know, you don't want to be focused on the center, and you don't want to just be focused on the front. It should be interesting from any angle. Why is that important to you since, you know, in most theaters, there are just audiences seated in front?

CUNNINGHAM: Well, that's based on the idea of proscenium theaters - as they called it, the Italian theater. It's based on the idea of perspective where you have a point to which everything relates some way or another. And the classical ballet, it seems to me, is built on that. That means there's one point that's the best, and that's the point that's directly in front of the royal box so that the royal box can see it. Everybody else deviates slightly all the way out here where you can't see anything.

That doesn't seem to me to be socially useful now, certainly not in the face of the way we think about people all over the world. That's like colonialism in a way. It has another point of view, if you're going to speak politically. But I didn't think of it that way. Although later on, I thought about it. I thought, but there's no reason why you can't change the space. You do it in the streets. You don't see people from the front in the streets. You see them from any angle. Why cannot you do that on the stage?

Now, we have - we perform in many different places, of course. We perform in the perspective stage. We perform in gymnasiums and hallways, out of doors. We have done many performances where the audience is on four sides, three sides or two sides so that you can't fix which way you focus. So I'd make the dances with that in mind - that they could be done in different - not all of them - certainly not. But almost all of them are arranged so that they could be done either in a perspective stage, a proscenium, or they could be done in another kind of space. You only have to think now about putting yourself in outer space. You're going to have a center of interest there.

GROSS: (Laughter).

CUNNINGHAM: How do you think about right and left when you're up floating around? How do you (inaudible) something out? The only thing you can do is think from yourself and each person in turn from himself. I'm going to my right. I can't say I'm going to go over there because at the time you get there, you've gone someplace else. You've shifted your - the - you've shifted where your body is.

So you have to think direction-wise differently. And I - in my work, ever since I began with Cage years and years ago when I got to thinking about space - and it was that remark of Einstein's where he said there are no fixed points in space. I thought, well, that works perfectly for the theater.

BIANCULLI: The late choreographer and dancer Merce Cunningham speaking with Terry Gross in 1985. This month marks the hundredth anniversary of his birth. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF ALEXEI LUBIMOV'S "DREAM")

BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR.

Let's get back to Terry's 1985 interview with the late dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham, who was born a hundred years ago this month. Cunningham died in 2009 at the age of 90.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

GROSS: Many dancers start choreographing after they retire from dance. Now, you've always been doing both, and you haven't stopped dancing.

CUNNINGHAM: I do less.

GROSS: You do less.

CUNNINGHAM: (Laughter).

GROSS: But you still dance. And you're in your mid-60s...

CUNNINGHAM: Yes.

GROSS: ...Now. Has working with your own body for dance as you've gotten older brought up any really interesting ways of using it that you hadn't thought of before when you were younger and had a more flexible body then?

CUNNINGHAM: Yes, I think so. I think the things about balance and about - since there are certain - many kinds of movements now that are not free for me to do - I'm not physically free to do - I find other ones. They're limited, of course. But - and I realize - I'm quite aware of that.

But within that scale, I keep trying to find new things, just for myself. This hasn't to do with the dancers in the company there. I've tried to push them as far as possible. You know, I don't think of dance or dancing as an object which is completed. I think of the whole thing as a process which I continue.

GROSS: Do you still do daily exercises?

CUNNINGHAM: Yes. I do what the dancers - what ballet people call a warm-up or a barre - I don't do as much as I used to, naturally not. But I do - I always do it when we're on tour. For example, I get up and go to the theater before anybody else, and I do my work, which is roughly an hour, certainly not more than that. Then I teach the company a class. Then we have rehearsal, and then we do an evening show.

GROSS: What's your mental attitude toward doing the exercises every day? Because it could become very tedious and a routine that you have to drag yourself through every day.

CUNNINGHAM: Oh, it's terrible.

GROSS: It's not enjoyable.

CUNNINGHAM: It is - I'm sure for many dancers, that's really the thing that perhaps really eventually stops them - the idea of having to do that every day because it is tedious. But I decided, OK, if this is what you have to do, you have to find a way to do it. So instead of thinking, oh, I'm going to repeat this every day, I adopted the philosophy that it was new each day. Even if I did the same thing, it was new (laughter). Even the simplest exercise was new all over again. It's simple to say and not not easy to do. But just the same, I keep finding new things then. Rather than just repeating exactly the way it is, I keep finding very slight ways - small ways, big ways. Hopefully with the dance company, it's big, big ways - for myself less so. But still, it's like renewing yourself. I mean, what if you decided that - you breathe a few times, and you decided you knew about that; you don't have to do that anymore (laughter).

GROSS: You've had your share of injuries - haven't you? - in dance?

CUNNINGHAM: Like all dancers, yes.

GROSS: Yeah. How do you...

CUNNINGHAM: It's constant.

GROSS: How do you know when it's OK to actually continue with the performance and keep dancing and when, if you do that, you're going to ruin that joint or that muscle forever and it'll ruin you?

CUNNINGHAM: I think that you shouldn't ask me that question 'cause I'm not sure I do know because I've danced under injuries which probably most dancers would have sense enough not to have done.

GROSS: Yeah.

CUNNINGHAM: (Laughter) So don't ask me.

GROSS: But you haven't suffered anything catastrophic from that. You haven't had to abandon dancing or...

CUNNINGHAM: Well, I thought at two points I was going to because I had a bad spine, a terrible back problem, sacroiliac lumbar like so many people have. And then I simply developed exercises that have kept me going and have helped that. And I put them in my dance technique in a different way but for the spine because I think that comes about when the lower back doesn't work. And most people don't use the muscles in the lower back. And then one day they do something all of a sudden, and it gives. I thought, well, there must be a way. There are muscles down there. There must be way to use them. So I developed exercises. And I've not had a serious back trouble since. And I have to be careful. I admit that. But I've not had serious back trouble.

GROSS: During those periods when you've been in pain because of an injury or just because of the toll that dancing daily takes on your body, have you ever taken painkillers or anything like that, or do you have a mental attitude that is - that can distract you from your own pain and take your mind off of it?

CUNNINGHAM: No. I was going to say yes and no. Once I took - I think it was when I had the back troubles. I took some - I don't know what they were. The doctor gave me something. But I realized that that was only an excuse and that I was not realizing what was really the problem, which was to get rid of the pain in the back, not not hide it. So I don't - I never - I just quit. I take vitamins pills, but that's - that - it's out of habit, and those are straight. But I'm not taking anything like that ever.

GROSS: You have challenged a lot of traditions and conventions of dance. Do you think it's important for artists to challenge conventions? Do you think that the act of challenging is important in and of itself? Or is that irrelevant and you just challenge things because that was your sensibility and that's the way it is?

CUNNINGHAM: I suppose it is important to challenge things, but I think in my own case, it was because I could see these ideas were possible. It wasn't the fact that I was doing something somebody else did or didn't do because although I don't know other dancers at the time who did it, there were visual artists involved in the ideas and certainly composers. So the idea that the - it was that these ideas were new ideas that were in the air, and these were possibilities that had never been tried before. And one could see there were possibilities even though wasn't - one wasn't sure how they might come out.

BIANCULLI: Merce Cunningham speaking to Terry Gross in 1985. The acclaimed dancer and choreographer died in 2009 at age 90. On April 16, dance companies around the world will celebrate the hundredth anniversary of his birth, featuring performances of Cunningham's choreography.

After a break, the new sci-fi thriller "High Life" opens today, and our film critic Justin Chang has a review. This is FRESH AIR.

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DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. In the science fiction thriller "High Life," Robert Pattinson and Juliette Binoche play two members of a space crew sent on a mission to investigate a black hole millions of miles from Earth. The movie is a rare English-language picture from the acclaimed French filmmaker Claire Denis, who previously directed Binoche in the 2017 romantic comedy "Let The Sunshine In." Film critic Justin Chang has this review.

JUSTIN CHANG, BYLINE: "High Life" is like no outer space movie you've ever seen even if you recognize some of its artistic influences. A bare description of the plot about a doomed crew of astronauts travelling millions of miles from Earth might suggest Ridley Scott's "Alien" and its countless gory imitators. The spaceship has a lush greenhouse that seems inspired by Douglas Trumbull's eco parable "Silent Running" while the mood of existential gloom feels straight out of Andrei Tarkovsky's science fiction landmarks "Solaris" and "Stalker."

But the sensibility behind "High Life" is unmistakably that of the great Claire Denis, one of the most exciting filmmakers working in France and indeed the world. Her movies, like "Beau Travail" and "White Material" are hauntingly beautiful objects, often elusive in narrative structure but overpowering in texture and atmosphere. She takes an honestly grim view of humanity, but her camera is always extraordinarily attuned to the beauty and complexity of the world that humanity inhabits. That world has now expanded to include deep space. And for Denis, a filmmaker whose style already tends toward the hallucinatory and dreamlike, it feels less like a departure than a logical progression. If you're coming to her work for the first time, you might find "High Life" chilly, forbidding and mysterious to the point of bafflement. You might also be held rapt by the intoxicating beauty of her images, the hypnotic rhythms of her editing and her skill at weaving an atmosphere of unspeakable dread.

Robert Pattinson gives a quietly charismatic performance as Monte, a young man we first meet taking care of an adorable baby girl aboard the spaceship. It's a tender but disturbing sight. What is a child doing in outer space, and why are the two of them all alone? Why does the ship look like an old, boxy relic from the '70s full of leaky pipes and outdated computers? The answers emerge as the story moves slowly but purposefully back and forth through time, reuniting us with the members of Monte's crew and revealing the sinister circumstances under which they died.

We get to know a few of them, including a soulful gardener played by the hip-hop artist Andre Benjamin and a fierce young woman played by Mia Goth. We learn that all of them, including Monte, were convicted of violent crimes on planet Earth and then blasted into space as part of a government mission to investigate a distant black hole, an interesting way to serve out a life sentence all in the name of science.

The group's self-appointed leader is a doctor played by a diabolical Juliette Binoche, who is hell bent on performing an experiment of her own. She wants to achieve human reproduction in space, to bring a child into this godforsaken emptiness, a master manipulator who is not above using physical restraints and psychological games to get what she wants. She collects sperm samples from the men and uses them to inseminate the women. The only one who doesn't take part at first is Monte, who has taken a personal vow of celibacy.

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JULIETTE BINOCHE: (As Dr. Dibs) I know I look like a witch. I mean, you all call me (unintelligible), right?

ROBERT PATTINSON: (As Monte) You're foxy, and you know it. I just don't understand how you can still believe in your celestial mission. It's like you've become a shaman of sperm. It's just a new religion for you.

BINOCHE: (As Dr. Dibs) Because I'm totally devoted to reproduction, happy monk. Going to sow your fields?

CHANG: Denis' filmmaking has a visceral, sometimes splattery intensity. And in "High Life," she directs our attention not outward toward the mysteries of the cosmos but inward toward the messiness of our own biology. What fascinates her here is the human body, its needs and desires, the way it reacts and breaks down in a hostile environment. If there's another movie spaceship with a private autoerotic chamber designed to relieve the astronauts' frustrations, I haven't seen it. As the doctor's experiment progresses and the group dynamics begin to spin out of whack, "High Life" builds to an almost ecstatic frenzy of physical and sexual violence. The movie becomes a stunning vision of human entropy, a space odyssey smeared in blood, tears, breast milk and other effluvia.

That may not sound terribly inviting, but Denis' vision is indelible. "High Life" is some kind of strange masterpiece, and its brutality is ultimately matched by its exquisite tenderness of feeling. In time, the story returns to that vision of Monte and his young child traveling together toward an uncertain destination. Denis gets you to feel the depths of their isolation but also their curious contentment. The great unfathomable void of outer space has become the only home they will ever know or need.

BIANCULLI: Justin Chang is a film critic at The LA Times. He reviewed the new movie "High Life." On Monday's show, Terry talks to Nathaniel Rich about his book "Losing Earth: A Recent History." It's about climate change and the years between 1979 and 1989 when he says we may have had a chance to solve the problem and what went wrong. They also discuss where we are now. Hope you can join us.

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BIANCULLI: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our senior producer today is Roberta Shorrock. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham with additional engineering support from Joyce Lieberman and Julian Herzfeld. Our associate producer for digital media is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Therese Madden directed today's show. For Terry Gross, I'm David Bianculli.

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Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.