Genre: Avant-garde / Exp
Release Date: 05/27/2008
Dubbed: English
Sound: DD2
Run Time: 41 min
Distributor/Studio: Microcinema

As conceived and shot in 1966, this program represents the second in a series of ten planned, performance-themed releases from Microcinema. In the said year, groundbreaking avant-garde composer and musician John Cage teamed up with nine other artists, including Robert Rauschenberg, Alex Hay and David Tudor, to put together a series of theatrical "events" with the assist of thirty scientists and engineers from Bell Telephone Laboratories, christened "9 Evenings." Years later, producers Billy Klüver and Julie Martin collected the archival footage from 9 Evenings and edited the footage into a series of ten films, each one a separate release, and each highlighting the work of one artist. This release focuses on the inclusions of the venerable Cage, who entitled his contribution "Variations VII." As the title suggests, this represented the seventh (or next-to-last) in the composer's Variations series, dating from 1958 - in which he used electronic systems and devices to produce defiantly non-traditional, a-melodic music and thus redefine the concept of "music" per se.

~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

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