By C.J. Hirschfield
Dildoes and devotion; porno and piety.
Oy gevalt. How to rationalize living in a daily mashup of these very different worlds is at the heart of the wonderful new documentary Circus of Books, premiering on Netflix April 22.
Barry and Karen Mason. Photo courtesy of Netflix/Huffpost/Getty
By C.J. Hirschfield
In 1964, renowned and prolific choreographer Merce Cunningham and his troupe embarked on their first world tour. In Paris, angry audience members threw eggs and tomatoes at him. “I wished it was apples; I was hungry,” he recalls. But when they performed in England, the response was dramatically different: “Merce Cunningham Conquers Conservatism,” read the headlines. And although Cunningham famously refused to define his work as modern or avant garde (preferring to let his audience define him based on their experience), he, and his partnerships with celebrated artists of the day, was in the center of an influential group changing the way we characterize music, visual art—and dance.
The original Merce Cunningham Dance Company. ©Robert Rutledge. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures
by C.J. Hirschfield
The first public performance of San Francisco’s renowned Gay Men’s Chorus took place in 1978 at an impromptu memorial at City Hall for pioneer gay rights advocate and city supervisor Harvey Milk and mayor George Moscone, who had been assassinated earlier that same day. It’s worth noting that they performed a religious song: “Thou, Lord, Hast Been our Refuge.” The tens of thousands of mourners had marched to City Hall from Castro Street.
Since that time, the world’s first gay chorus has performed all over the world.
