John Cage Avant Garde Analysis

At UCLA, John Cage composed music for several choreographies, and incorporated for the first time non-musical elements in his compositions, ranging from kitchen utensils, to metal sheets, and household objects. The following year, in 1938, he moved to Seattle, Washington, and worked at the Cornish School of the Arts as a composer and dance accompanist. He experimented works with dance, and collaborated with the choreographer and dancer Merce Cunningham. At that time, he made several breakthrough discoveries, and effectively emerged as a professional composer (Jarrad Powell). He innovated with materials, methods, structures, and sounds, and included noises that were considered “unmusical”. He founded “Avant-Garde” percussion ensembles for his

In this piece, the whole part was divided into individual parts, where each one of them was, in parallel, divided into phrases. Elaborating, that piece consisted of units of sixteen measures, each split into five phrases, with lengths of 4,3,2,3 and 4 bars, and”there were 16 of these units, grouped into five sections in similar proportions. This structure (with slight adaptations) was the foundation of all John Cage’s main concert works, until 1956. This technique was the outcome of unpitched materials, along with his collaborative work with the dancers, whose choreography was based on comparable

1939 to 1945, 2nd world war. The world wars massacres and sufferings tremendously impacted the societies of the time, leaving people in trauma, grief and hurt. Everyone, including artists and musicians, experienced or witnessed life threatening situations, and were shocked by the destructive war. This gave rise to awareness regarding several social issues, and people longed for a fundamental change. On that note, artists developed a more sensitive and sharper approach to their art work. They started to be more daring in their artistic practices, and wanted to generate anti-war work statements. WW1 was a turning-point, and catalyzed the transformation of the visual arts. The period of late Romanticism, Symbolism and Expression came to an end. The Dada movement, 1st major anti-art movement, appeared, and artists revolted against the prevalent cultures and values, which they believed were the support of the socio-political status quo and the cause of the bloodshed of WWI. They undermined the traditional role of art, which they believe had contributed. Dada rapidly developed into a major Avant-Garde art movement. This movement marked a period of innovation and exploration, in a world of widespread turbulence. Avant-Garde artists refuted widely accepted rules, conventions and traditional aesthetic ideas. They explored novel artistic methods and subject matters, that were not seen or introduced by anyone before. They looked way beyond the simple