Remembering Merce Cunningham

AT THE END of July, Merce Cunningham died at the age of 90 after seven decades as a dancer and visionary choreographer. “Merce,” as he was affectionately referred to, performed with the Martha Graham and Paul Taylor dance companies. Along with them, he became a pioneer for modern dance, but he was also an innovator who made work that was altogether different, without anyone’s influence.

I remember being a student in the Cunningham school after graduating with a dance degree from Middlebury College in Vermont. I decided to hit the dance Mecca of New York to study with people I had been hearing about and watching on stage. The school was in the funky, downtown Westbeth neighborhood. A few years before, I had received a nod from Merce at a college dance festival, giving me a summer scholarship to the American Dance Festival in my junior year.

The studio was breathtaking for a dance student—sacred ground for art to thrive—in a vast, empty space with windows open to the city’s roof tops, interrupted by wall-length mirrors where dancers scrutinized their alignment, flexibility, and shapes which only Merce and his dancers were fully capable of.

I remember one day in particular—while battling a tendu combination with directional changes that only a Mensa type could understand—when Merce emerged and began to walk the perimeter of the dance floor. As if in a slow motion, his feet barely left the floor due to the arthritis plaguing his body. But even as a slightly hunched older man, he assumed an animal-like awareness that could be seen in a panther of the same age. I stopped and stared as if witnessing greatness.

The dancers and teachers at Merce’s school were not warm and fuzzy. They bordered on cold and anti-social. I didn’t make friends or get many words of encouragement, and this is what translated in his dances as well. Critics have often deemed his work impersonal and unemotional. It had, in fact, been one of his early manifestos not to make dances like Graham’s “psycho-dramas,” but to make movement for the sake of movement. This dancer (me) needed a little more heart, but I was always drawn to the technical virtuosity of the dancing. Like ballet, Merce loved specific lines and shapes, vertical torsos, spit-fire foot work, and changes in dynamics that were sharp as a knife.

The nature of his work was based on chance and there was no apparent narrative. This meant that by flipping a coin, rolling dice, and later using computer software, any combination of movement, music, and stage design or stage space could be scrambled to produce a result that could not be conceived by the human mind on its own. The Zen-like acceptance and spontaneity was undetermined until sometimes the last minute. I have heard members of his company say that, even as they waited off stage they were uncertain of the movement sequence or the sound or which direction to face. This would make most dancers run for the hills!

During one of his company’s performances, several audience members abruptly left the theatre, maybe because John Cage’s score included the banging of an ancient radiator, or maybe they just didn’t understand it and didn’t want to waste their time. But I couldn’t help but smile and think that Merce choreographed these exits as well—that this was all part of the experience!

Whatever you thought of Merce’s work, it was usually intriguing, beautiful, and avant garde at a time when everything had been done before. His artistic questioning and his longtime methods have influenced many young dancers and choreographers. The small world of modern dance is sad to see him exit the stage.

Tags: Cunningham School, Merce Cunningham, modern dance, modern dance teachers

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 12th, 2009 at 12:50 pm and is filed under Dance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.