Recreating Merce Cunningham, Frame by Frame

Paris-Merce Cunningham's “Un Jour ou deux,” which opens at the Paris Opera Ballet on Wednesday night on a double bill with Marie-Agnès Gillot's “Sous Apparance,” is a curiosity even for Cunningham aficionados. Originally 90 minutes long, set to a complex score by John Cage, it was created for the Paris Opera Ballet in 1973-and despite the admiration for Cunningham's work that the French had shown well before the United States followed suit, the work caused an outcry at its premiere.

“Some people loved it, but many people come to the opera for diversion, and it was difficult for them,” said Brigitte Lefèvre, the director of the Paris Opera Ballet.

Ms. Lefèvre was speaking during a rehearsal break on Saturday as musicians set up stations with blocks of wood and percussive instruments in the orchestra pit, readying themselves for the difficulties of the Cage score, which demands improvisation from the players and keeps them moving around the pit.

Ms. Lefèvre's own relationship with Cunningham goes back a long way. She was instrumental in bringing the choreographer's work to France when she and Jacques Garnier, a fellow Paris Opera dancer, founded le Theatre du Silence in 1971 and were given permission to perform “Summerspace” and “Changing Steps.”

“Merce was amused that we were going to perform our own work on a program with his pieces,” she said. “He had such a generous spirit: the contrast genuinely interested him.”

Despite the contentious reception of “Un Jour ou deux” (A Day or Two), the Paris Opera brought it back in 1986, and Cunningham cut it to just over 60 minutes. Whether because it now shared a program (with Rudolf Nureyev's “Washington Square”) rather than being performed alone, or whether Cunningham felt it was too long, isn't clear, said Robert Swinston, a Cunningham dancer who, with Jennifer Goggans, reconstructed the work for the current season.

“Be cause it hadn't been performed since 1986, the process was an extremely painstaking one,” Mr. Swinston said after the rehearsal, as stagehands rolled up flooring on the raked Palais Garnier stage. There were blurry videos, he said, of one rehearsal and one performance, from both the 1973 and 1986 runs, but no clear indications of many specific parts for the 25-strong ensemble. (Unlike most Cunningham works, “Un Jour” has principal roles, and the central couple was danced during both seasons by Wilifried Piollet and Jean Guizerix; those, as well as three soloist parts, were more easily reconstructed.)

Together with Laurent Hilaire, a former étoile who is now a ballet master at the Opera, and who performed one of the solo roles in 1986, Mr. Swinston and Ms. Goggans watched blown-up, slowed-down sections of the dance to identify the dancers and then track them throughout the piece, creating detailed graphs to keep track of who was where when.

“Improved tec hnology actually enabled us to put this together,” he said. “What you could barely see on the grainy video became at least vaguely apparent with high-definition screening.”

As with any reconstruction, there were decisions to be made. “There were moments, specially with partnering, when you could get the general effect of a movement, but not exactly how it was being achieved,” said Ms. Goggans. “So we had to experiment until it looked right.”

And Mr. Swinston said that in many cases they stuck to the 1973, rather than the 1986, version because they believed Cunningham's intentions were clearer in that version.

What the discussion revealed is the delicate, difficult business of putting together a dance that hasn't been performed for 26 years, when the choreographer is no longer alive. Video is blurry; dancers may have made mistakes; memories fade. Often, Mr. Swinston said, it's a judgment call, a decision about what you think the choreographer would have wanted.

There will no doubt be dedicated Cunningham followers in the audience to decide whether Mr. Swinston and Ms. Goggans got it right, and whether the Paris Opera dancers do justice to the master's precise, demanding work. Like all of Cunningham's work, “Un Jour ou Deux” asks the audience for concentration and immersion in a universe as full of surprising wonders as nature itself.

“It's not necessarily an easy piece, but I am thrilled to bring it back, specially in the centenary year of John Cage,” Ms. Lefèvre said. “I think it's a masterpiece, and I'm proud that it's ours.”