Choreographer Merce Cunningham (1919–2009) took chances. Over a seven decade career, his explorations reshaped dance into a new kind of art form, deeply influencing visual art, film, and music along the way. Through experimental collaborations with John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, Marcel Duchamp, and others, he became the 20th century’s most influential choreographer. In conjunction with the exhibition Merce Cunningham: Common Time, we look at the many sides of Cunningham: dance maker, collaborator, chance-taker, innovator, film producer, and teacher.
Video produced by Andy Underwood-Bultmann. Graphic identity by Ryan Gerald Nelson. Additional graphics by Jas Stefanski.
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.
Former Merce Cunningham Dance Company dancers Patricia Lent, Silas Riener, and Andrea Weber share their experiences as members of Cunningham’s company. Moderated by Bonnie Brooks, associate professor of dance at Columbia College, Chicago.
One Work: Mary Coyne on Jasper Johns's Walkaround Time
Why has Walkaround Time become such a fitting icon for interdisciplinary collaborative practice, despite being one of many striking stage décor works created by leading visual artists for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company?
