JOHN CAGE: MAN AND MYTH1990

Zen genius John Cage is one of the great philosopher-artists of the 20th Century, adding the necessary spice to post-WW2 music, poetry and performance art in America. More than any other artist-composer, John Cage relays the teachings of Thoreau, Duchamp and Stein into our modern media vocabulary. He touches us how to listen.




John Cage: Man and Myth is an exhilarating multimedia achievement. Mix the close-up Cage interview with fresh insights by a dozen major avant-garde lights: Allan Kaprow, Richard Kostelanetz, Alison Knowles, Jackson MacLow, Marjorie Perloff, David Antin, Glenn Branca, Johnny Reinhard & Phillip Glass, season with Portrait by the dada performance artist Stuart Sherman now simmer ingredients in a sizzling Cage-inspired edit souffle.




An inventor's son, John Cage turned music on its ear in the 40's with 4'33' and his prepared piano (inserting into the strings all sorta of weather-stripping, bamboo, screws, bolts and wedges of plastic to alter its traditional sound). Here pianist Joshua Pierce displays the prepared piano and performs Cage's haunting Sonatas and Interludes.