Merce cunningham dance company biography samples
Cunningham's Legacy
Merce Cunningham's Work
Cunningham created 180 dances, prolific drawings, and trenchant writings
Hallmarks of his Work
Collaboration
Transforming the collaborative process, each artistic element was created independently and brought together for the premiere performance.
Chance
Using chance procedures in planning his dances opened his mind to new possibilities for movement and other choreographic elements.
Technology
Embracing and exploring technology as a creative tool was a lifelong passion.
Perspective
Moving beyond the conventions of the proscenium, Cunningham gave equal importance to any position on the stage.
Choreography
Cunningham forever changed the landscape of dance, music and contemporary art.
See ChoreographyThe Cunningham Technique
Cunningham created a training process to develop strength and flexibility in both the body and the mind.
Learn MoreCunningham used media in many forms creatively and to capture his work throughout his career.
Explore MediaDrawings
Cunningham drew constantly, nature being his primary source of inspiration.
Technique is the disciplining of one's energies through physical action in order to free that energy at any desired instant in its highest possible physical and spiritual form.
Merce Cunningham,
The Function of Technique for Dance
A Prolific Writer
Cunningham wrote numerous pieces about dance, technique and his own choreographic process.
Explore WritingsHis work continues to influence new generations
of dancers and audience.
Preserving Cunningham's Vision For The Future
Documentation
Cunningham ensured that there was extensive video and written documentation of his works.
Preservation
The Dance Capsules as well as partnerships with major institutions allow for the preservation of Cunningham's complete body of work.
Continuation
The creation of the Merce Cunningham Trust an Merce Cunningham was a respected dancer and choreographer. He was born in April of 1919 and passed away during the summer of 2009. He started his life in Centralia, Washington and ended his days in the Big Apple. His avant-garde dance performances and innovative choreography earned him plenty of fans and lots of critical acclaim. He created a body of work which is now a powerful and inspiring legacy.
In this blog post, we’d like to share more information about the life and work of Merce Cunningham. We’ll discuss the early period of his life and then move onto his major career highlights. We’ll also talk about just a handful of the awards and accolades that he received for his ground-breaking and compelling work.
Early Life Highlights
Merce always believed that people who committed their lives to dancing did so because they loved it. This is why he danced. He lived for the act of dancing itself and the feeling of vitality that it gave him.
The desire to dance started early, so he began to tap dance while he was still a boy. His tap dancing allowed him to enter into the world of theater. Soon enough, theater life became captivating. While he was a teenager, he learned more about dancing, via a vaudevillian and circus performer named Maude Barrett. He also had a short stint at George Washington University. He made the switch to Seattle’s Cornish School of Fine Arts during 1937. At this post-secondary educational institution, he became friends with John Cage, who was a composer. Cage was destined to be his true love, as well as his work partner.
While at the fine arts school in Seattle, Cunningham decided to major in dance, rather than focusing on theater as he’d planned. He began to choreograph dances while attending the Cornish School of Fine Art. Merce also attended Mills College during 1938 and went to Bennington College the next year. While at Bennington, dancing legend, Martha Graham, asked him to join her dance trou Merce Cunningham was one of the greatest American dance artists. His seven-decade career was distinguished by constant innovation in which he expanded the frontiers of contemporary art, visual arts, performing arts, and music.
The Walker Art Center, a supporter of his creativity and work over several decades, created The Six Sides of Merce Cunningham as part of its ground-breaking exhibition - Common Time - devoted to Merce and his collaborators.
The Six Sides of Merce Cunningham
Merce Cunningham, considered the most influential choreographer of the 20th century, was a many-sided artist. He was a dance-maker, a fierce collaborator, a chance taker, a boundless innovator, a film producer, and a teacher. During his 70 years of creative practice, Cunningham's exploration forever changed the landscape of dance, music, and contemporary art.
During his career, Merce Cunningham created 190 repertory dances and more than 700 Events, in which he knit together movement phrases from past and future works into a choreographic event that could be performed anywhere.
The Dance Maker
Even at an early age, Merce Cunningham delighted audiences with his physical and expressive abilities, and his compelling stage presence. He had a deep well of energy for performing, a passion that would develop into an unparalleled and prolific career as a choreographer.
Cunningham started his own dance company in 1953 and created hundreds of unique choreographic works. Defined by precision and complexity, Cunningham's dances combined intense physicality with intellectual rigor. He challenged traditional ideas of dance, such as the roles of the dancers and the audience, the limitations of the stage, and the relationships between movement and beauty. Cunningham's embrace of an expanded possibility of dance, music, and visual arts reads like a how-to for pushing the boundaries of culture for subsequent generations.
The Collaborator
In the 1940s, Merce Cunningham and
Merce cunningham and john cage Summary of Merce Cunningham
One of the most innovative artists of the 20 century, Merce Cunningham employed a range of tactics to create his sometimes difficult dance productions that confounded and delighted viewers. Often working with his life partner, avant-garde composer John Cage, Cunningham banished dance's traditional reliance on emotive narrative and instead infused it with a sense of the everyday and ordinary. Embracing chance and allowing dancers more autonomy and choice, Cunningham's dances are grounded in the random and unexpected but can also reveal deep meditations on human relationships and how we exist in the world at large.
Working on the edges of Happenings, Fluxus, and Neo-Dada, Cunningham's collaborative practice led him to work with some of the most innovative musicians, including Pauline Oliveros, David Tudor, and LaMont Young, as well as artists such as Nam June Paik, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Bruce Nauman, and Robert Morris. Inhabiting this intermedia landscape for so many decades, Cunningham's influence can be felt in many corners of the art world.
Accomplishments
- Mostly defying categories, Cunningham was a central participant in the group of Neo-Dadaist artists that included John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jasper Johns. Taking cues from Marcel Duchamp, these artists used found objects to critique high and traditional notions of art and often parodied the self-expression of the Abstract Expressionists. Additionally, Cunningham incorporated the performative aspects of Happenings and Fluxus to push the boundaries of dance.
- Perhaps inspired by John Cage, Cunningham largely relied on chance to choreograph his dances. Using playing cards, tossing coins, or sometimes consulting the I-Ching, an ancient Chinese text used for divination, Cunningham would order and arrange movements, sometimes employing ordinary actions, into a dance. According to Cunningham, chance freed his imagination and let him work outside of cult
Merce Cunningham was a respected dancer and choreographer. He was born in April of 1919 and passed away during the summer of 2009. He started his life in Centralia, Washington and ended his days in the Big Apple. His avant-garde dance performances and innovative choreography earned him plenty of fans and lots of critical acclaim. He created a body of work which is now a powerful and inspiring legacy.
In this blog post, we’d like to share more information about the life and work of Merce Cunningham. We’ll discuss the early period of his life and then move onto his major career highlights. We’ll also talk about just a handful of the awards and accolades that he received for his ground-breaking and compelling work.
Early Life Highlights
Merce always believed that people who committed their lives to dancing did so because they loved it. This is why he danced. He lived for the act of dancing itself and the feeling of vitality that it gave him.
The desire to dance started early, so he began to tap dance while he was still a boy. His tap dancing allowed him to enter into the world of theater. Soon enough, theater life became captivating. While he was a teenager, he learned more about dancing, via a vaudevillian and circus performer named Maude Barrett. He also had a short stint at George Washington University. He made the switch to Seattle’s Cornish School of Fine Arts during 1937. At this post-secondary educational institution, he became friends with John Cage, who was a composer. Cage was destined to be his true love, as well as his work partner.
While at the fine arts school in Seattle, Cunningham decided to major in dance, rather than focusing on theater as he’d planned. He began to choreograph dances while attending the Cornish School of Fine Art. Merce also attended Mills College during 1938 and went to Bennington College the next year. While at Bennington, dancing legend, Martha Graham, asked him to join her dance trou Merce Cunningham, considered the most influential choreographer of the 20th century, was a many-sided artist. He was a dance-maker, a fierce collaborator, a chance taker, a boundless innovator, a film producer, and a teacher. During his 70 years of creative practice, Cunningham's exploration forever changed the landscape of dance, music, and contemporary art. Even at an early age, Merce Cunningham delighted audiences with his physical and expressive abilities, and his compelling stage presence. He had a deep well of energy for performing, a passion that would develop into an unparalleled and prolific career as a choreographer. Cunningham started his own dance company in 1953 and created hundreds of unique choreographic works. Defined by precision and complexity, Cunningham's dances combined intense physicality with intellectual rigor. He challenged traditional ideas of dance, such as the roles of the dancers and the audience, the limitations of the stage, and the relationships between movement and beauty. Cunningham's embrace of an expanded possibility of dance, music, and visual arts reads like a how-to for pushing the boundaries of culture for subsequent generations. In the 1940s, Merce Cunningham and One of the most innovative artists of the 20 century, Merce Cunningham employed a range of tactics to create his sometimes difficult dance productions that confounded and delighted viewers. Often working with his life partner, avant-garde composer John Cage, Cunningham banished dance's traditional reliance on emotive narrative and instead infused it with a sense of the everyday and ordinary. Embracing chance and allowing dancers more autonomy and choice, Cunningham's dances are grounded in the random and unexpected but can also reveal deep meditations on human relationships and how we exist in the world at large. Merce Cunningham was one of the greatest American dance artists. His seven-decade career was distinguished by constant innovation in which he expanded the frontiers of contemporary art, visual arts, performing arts, and music.
The Walker Art Center, a supporter of his creativity and work over several decades, created The Six Sides of Merce Cunningham as part of its ground-breaking exhibition - Common Time - devoted to Merce and his collaborators.
The Six Sides of Merce Cunningham
During his career, Merce Cunningham created 190 repertory dances and more than 700 Events, in which he knit together movement phrases from past and future works into a choreographic event that could be performed anywhere.
The Dance Maker
The Collaborator
Summary of Merce Cunningham
Working on the edges of Happenings, Fluxus, and Neo-Dada, Cunningham's collaborative practice led him to work with some of the most innovative musicians, including Pauline Oliveros, David Tudor, and LaMont Young, as well as artists such as Nam June Paik, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Bruce Nauman, and Robert Morris. Inhabiting this intermedia landscape for so many decades, Cunningham's influence can be felt in many corners of the art world. Accomplishments