P R O G R A M M E

The Fluxus events of the 1960’s which featured Danger Music

NEO-DADA IN DER MUSIK • 16 June 1962

This programme was organised by Carlheinz Caspari, George Maciunas, Nam June Paik, Benjamin Patterson, Thomas Schmid, and Wolf Vostell at the Kammerspiele theatre in Dusseldorf. The program was co-directed by Paik and Maciunas and the opening speech was delivered by Jean-Pierre Wilhelm. Here Dick Higgins performed a small selection of the Danger Music scores as well as the performance Strctured.

Fluxus Internationale Festspiele
Neuestem Musik (14 Konzerte) • 1—23 September

In Wiesbaden, West Germany, George Maciunas organised the first of a series of international events that could mark the formation of the Fluxus movement.
The idea of the festival was to raise money to publish a Fluxus magazine, so it was called the Fluxus Festival. The German press referred to the participants by the name of the festival, calling them die Fluxus Leute, the 'Fluxus people'. The artists in Wiesbaden included Dick Higgins, Alison Knowles, Arthur Kopcke, George Maciunas, Nam June Paik, Benjamin Patterson, Karl Erik Welin, Emmett Williams, and Wolf Vostell. They were already in contact with artists and composers such as George Brecht, Jackson Mac Low, La Monte Young, Ben Vautier and with many of the individuals whose work was soon to appear in An Anthology.
The festival caused great notoriety, was on German television, and was repeated in various cities beside Wiesbaden. At Wiesbaden in 1962 the Hausmeister (janitor) of the museum was so delighted by the performances that he brought his family and friends to the concerts as well.
Dick Higgins performs Graphis 82, Constellation No. 7 & No. 4, Danger Music 15 & 17, and Requiem.

Fluxus Festival • 12—28 November 1962

In November 1962 the Nikolaj Kirke in Copenhagen hosted the second Fluxus Festival. It was planned by George Maciunas, the inventor of the word “Fluxus”, but organised locally by the visual artist Arthur Køpcke, the Danish section of the International Society for Contemporary Music and Knud Pedersen, who had organised an art library at the Nikolaj Kirke. From Maciunas’s and Fluxus’s perspective it represented a step in the development of Fluxus from an encyclopaedia of “concretism” in the arts to a specific artistic endeavour, while for Copenhagen and Denmark it was both a shocking manifestation of avant-garde radicalism and the beginning of a longer-lasting Fluxus presence in the country and the region.
Dick Higgins performs a selection of Danger Music works as well as George Brecht's Drip Music.

Happenings, Danger Music, Fluxus
Dick Higgins and Alison Knowles • 1 March 1963

Happenings, Danger Music, Fluxus took place in Stockholm, winter 1963. It was billed as an event led and featuring Dick Higgins and Alison Knowles, but also included performances by George Brecht, Al Hansen, Nam June Paik and La Monte Young. It is unknown what works were performed.

Fluxus Festival • 23 June 1963

Organised by Willem de Ridder, this iteration of Fluxus Festival was presented at the Hypokriterion Theater, Amsterdam, and advertised as "theatre compositions, street compositions, exhibits, and electronic music." It is unknown which Dick Higgins scores were performed.

Fully Guaranteed 12 Fluxus Concerts • 11 April—23 May 1964

The Fully Guaranteed 12 Fluxus Concerts were a series of street events held at Fluxhall in New York City from March to May 1964 and took place at 359 Canal Street. They were organised by George Maciunas who also made the poster.

Monday Night Letter • 2 November 1964

George Brecht & Robert Watts organised a weekly series at New York's Cafe au Go Go. The participants in these evenings of music, events and happenings, lecture demonstrations, dance and indescribable intermedia amount to a roster of American Fluxus, with additions from the New York avant-garde.

These performances, and many more of the Fluxus scores have generated a contemporary look to performative acts. As is often the case with Fluxus scores, anyone can perform this work, with the freedom to interpret the proposition in any number of ways — Tate on Artists Instructions

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