Merce at 87
I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with Merce Cunningham. I love the way he opened up the world of dance into realms of chance and found the beauty in the random combination of elements. He used beautifully the brain’s compunction to create relationships even where they aren’t actually there, and so the landing of a dancer on one foot will seem to coincide with the dropping of a needle on a record…even though they were never actually planned that way.
He was a bit of an outcast in the dance world for that reason, though:
"In my dance work, I very rarely saw dancers, except the people with whom I worked directly, naturally," Cunningham says. "I don’t think I ever had a conversation with someone say from the Graham company or from the New York City Ballet about dancing — because if I brought up my ideas, they were not shocked, they just didn’t comprehend this sense of possibility."
Yesterday on NPR Renee Montagne gave a great interview with the man, and you can listen to it free on the NPR site. I especially like the end of the piece, when she asks him if he will be dancing right up to his last breath: "I can call it dancing, even if nobody else does,"
Tags: dance, merce cunningham, npr
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