How do you go about composing a particular dance?

In a direct way. I start with a step. Using the word step is a hangover from my adolescent vaudeville days. I step with my feet, legs, hands, body, head -- that is what prompts me, and out of that other movements grow, and different elements (theatre) may be involved.

This is not beginning with an idea that concerns character or story, a fait accompli around which the actions are grouped for reference purposes. I start with the movement, even something moving rather than someone (pillows in the air). And I ordinarily start with myself; not always, it may be with one or two of the dancers. But then, out of this the action begins to assume its own proportions, and other possibilities appear as the dance proceeds. New situations present themselves -- between the dancers, the dancers and the space, the space and the time. It is not subject to a prearranged idea as to how it should go any more than a conversation you might have with a friend while out walking. It can take a momentum of its own, that is. That leaves open the possibility of surprise (chance), and that is essential.

Published in Dance Perspectives No. 34, Summer, 1968.

"Based on an interview televised in Buffalo, N.Y., by the Eastern Educational Television Network on March 8, 1968, as part of its coverage of the Cunningham Company's opening concert on [sic] the Buffalo Festival of the Arts Today. Mr. Cunningham has edited the transcript of his remarks for this issue."