Merce Cunningham
Monday, 27 July 2009
Dance is a very beautiful art. I remember attending a ballet performance when I was quite young, and being fascinated with the beauty lines and shapes that well-trained dancers can produce. There were always plenty of moments that could have been framed into very compelling studies in movement and light - the Chasse’, the Sissone, the Grand Jete, the Pas de Chat… A lot must be said of the dedication that dancers devote to their art. And even more so when the dancer is as innovative and revolutionary as Merce Cunningham. Sadly, he has just passed away.
Born just after World War I in a small town near Seattle, Cunningham loved to dance as a child. From 1939 to 1945, he was a soloist in the company of Martha Graham, regarded at the time as one of the foremost pioneers of modern dance. He presented his first New York solo concert in April 1944, with music from composer John Cage, who became his life partner and frequent collaborator until Cage’s death in 1992. In a radical move, the couple decided to end the traditional marriage of movement and music, saying that both arts should exist independently even when sharing the same space. Cunningham also abandoned conventional storytelling through ballet to focus entirely on the poetry of dance. (BBC)
Photographs of Merce Cunningham taken by Mark Seliger.