Historians Juliet Bellow, Liz Kotz, and Roger Copeland present their research on Merce Cunningham’s collaborations with visual artists Isamu Noguchi, Robert Morris, and Robert Rauschenberg. Moderated by Common Time co-curator Joan Rothfuss.
Four Events that Have Led to Large Discoveries (About Merce Cunningham)
"What was it about Cunningham that made him stand out so," asks art historian Douglas Crimp in his catalogue essay for the 2017 exhibition Merce Cunningham: Common Time. "The dance movement he made—whatever its diverse sources in ballet and modern technique, observation of people in the streets and animals in nature, chance operations, pure invention—was uniquely suited to his own body, and he was its finest exponent." Joining in a worldwide celebration of choreographer/dancer Merce Cunningham's birth—born on this day in 1919—we share Crimp's essay online for the first time as a testament to Cunningham's influence, innovation, and iconoclasm.
