"Changes, a look into the working notebooks of Merce Cunningham, is the most comprehensive book on choreography to emerge from the new dance. Cunningham's reflections on his art engage the reader in an awareness of both his own sensibility and the potential of the medium. Its pages are reproductions of the in-progress notes for the individual dances - to indicate the method - superimposed with speculation - to define the problem - and complemented with visual and other material relevant to the performing arts. Cunningham approaches the dance in terms of its primary elements - movement in space and time - and the source from which they spring - stillness. He examines the theater in terms of the presence - or absence - of movement, sound, light, decor and costume. He explores these elements separately, then superimposes them upon each other, and sometimes back upon themselves. He further opens his work to the possibilities inherent in each element through chance, a means of introducing variety into the compositional procedure." -- from interior flap. Printed in black-and-white and color.