Mercier Philip "Merce" Cunningham (April 16, 1919 – July 26, 2009) was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of American modern dance for more than 50 years. He frequently collaborated with artists of other disciplines, including musicians

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...

David Tudor David Eugene Tudor (January 20, 1926 – August 13, 1996) was an American pianist and composer of experimental music. Life and career Tudor was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He studied piano with Irma Wolpe and composition with Stefan W ...

Brian Eno Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno (; born Brian Peter George Eno, 15 May 1948) is a British musician, composer, record producer and visual artist best known for his contributions to ambient music and work in rock, pop an ...

, and graphic artists

Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artwor ...

Bruce Nauman Bruce Nauman (born December 6, 1941) is an American artist. His practice spans a broad range of media including sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing, printmaking, and performance. Nauman lives near Galisteo, New Mexico. Life and work ...

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...

Roy Lichtenstein Roy Fox Lichtenstein (; October 27, 1923 – September 29, 1997) was an American pop artist. During the 1960s, along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and James Rosenquist among others, he became a leading figure in the new art movement. Hi ...

Frank Stella Frank Philip Stella (born May 12, 1936) is an American painter, sculptor and printmaker, noted for his work in the areas of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction. Stella lives and works in New York City. Biography Frank Stella was born in M ...

, and

Jasper Johns Jasper Johns (born May 15, 1930) is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker whose work is associated with abstract expressionism, Neo-Dada, and pop art. He is well known for his depictions of the American flag and other US-related top ...

; and fashion designer

Rei Kawakubo (b. 1942) is a Japanese fashion designer based in Tokyo and Paris. She is the founder of Comme des Garçons and Dover Street Market. In recognition of the notable design contributions of Kawakubo, an exhibition of her designs entitled '' Rei ...

. Works that he produced with these artists had a profound impact on avant-garde art beyond the world of dance. As a choreographer, teacher, and leader of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Cunningham had a profound influence on

modern dance Modern dance is a broad genre of western concert or theatrical dance which included dance styles such as ballet, folk, ethnic, religious, and social dancing; and primarily arose out of Europe and the United States in the late 19th and early 20th ...

. Many dancers who trained with Cunningham formed their own companies. They include Paul Taylor,

Remy Charlip Remy or Rémy may refer to: Places * Remy River, a tributary of rivière du Gouffre in Saint-Urbain, Quebec, Canada * Rémy, a French commune in Pas-de-Calais * Remy, Oise, northern France * Remy, Oklahoma, USA * 14683 Remy, an asteroid * Po ...

Viola Farber Viola Farber (February 25, 1931 – December 24, 1998) was an American choreographer and dancer. Biography Viola Farber was born on February 25, 1931, in Heidelberg, Germany. In Germany, Farber began dancing. However, at the age of six she was ...

, Charles Moulton,

Karole Armitage Karole Armitage (born March 3, 1954) is an American dancer and choreographer currently based in New York City. She is artistic director of Armitage Gone! Dance, a contemporary dance company that performs several times annually in New York City as ...

Deborah Hay Deborah Hay (born 1941 in Brooklyn, New York) is a choreographer, dancer, dance theorist, and author working in the field of experimental postmodern dance. She is one of the original founders of the Judson Dance Theater. Hay's signature slow and ...

, Robert Kovich, Foofwa d'Imobilité, Kimberly Bartosik, Flo Ankah,

Jan Van Dyke Jan Van Dyke (April 15, 1941 – July 3, 2015) was an American dancer, choreographer, dance educator and scholar who was a pioneer of modern dance, modern and contemporary dance. Education Van Dyke graduated from the University of Wisconsin wi ...

Jonah Bokaer Jonah Bokaer (born October 1, 1981) is an American choreographer and media artist. He works on live performances in the United States and elsewhere, including choreography, digital media, cross-disciplinary collaborations, and social enterprise. ...

, and

Alice Reyes Alice Garcia Reyes (born October 14, 1942) is a Filipina dancer, choreographer, teacher, director and producer. The founder (together with Eddie Elejar) of Ballet Philippines, she received since June 20, 2014 from the Philippine President Benign ...

. In 2009, the Cunningham Dance Foundation announced the Legacy Plan, a plan for the continuation of Cunningham's work and the celebration and preservation of his artistic legacy. Cunningham earned some of the highest honours bestowed in the arts, including the

National Medal of Arts The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and Patronage, patrons of the arts. A prestigious American honor, it is the highest honor given to artists and ar ...

and the

MacArthur Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to ...

. He also received Japan's

Praemium Imperiale Prince Takamatsu The Praemium Imperiale ( ja, 高松宮殿下記念世界文化賞, Takamatsu-no-miya Denka Kinen Sekai Bunka-shō, World Culture Prize in Memory of His Imperial Highness Prince Takamatsu) is an international art prize inaugur ...

and a British

Laurence Olivier Award The Laurence Olivier Awards, or simply the Olivier Awards, are presented annually by the Society of London Theatre to recognise excellence in professional theatre in London at an annual ceremony in the capital. The awards were originally known as ...

, and was named Officier of the

Légion d'honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...

in France. Cunningham's life and artistic vision have been the subject of numerous books, films, and exhibitions, and his works have been presented by groups including the

Paris Opéra Ballet The Paris Opera Ballet () is a French ballet company that is an integral part of the Paris Opera. It is the oldest national ballet company, and many European and international ballet companies can trace their origins to it. It is still regarded ...

New York City Ballet New York City Ballet (NYCB) is a ballet company founded in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are considered the founding choreographers of the company. Léon Barzin was the company' ...

American Ballet Theatre American Ballet Theatre (ABT) is a classical ballet company based in New York City. Founded in 1939 by Lucia Chase and Richard Pleasant, it is recognized as one of the world's leading classical ballet companies. Through 2019, it had an annual ei ...

White Oak Dance Project White Oak Dance Project was a dance company founded in 1990 by Mikhail Baryshnikov and Mark Morris. The company took the name of the animal preservation and land plantation owned by philanthropist and Baryshnikov friend Howard Gilman. Gilman buil ...

, and London's

Rambert Dance Company Rambert (known as Rambert Dance Company before 2014) is a leading British dance company. Formed at the start of the 20th century as a classical ballet company, it exerted a great deal of influence on the development of dance in the United Kingd ...

Biography

Merce Cunningham was born in

Centralia, Washington Centralia () is a city in Lewis County, Washington, United States. It is located along Interstate 5 near the midpoint between Seattle and Portland, Oregon. The city had a population of 18,183 at the 2020 census. Centralia is twinned with Ch ...

in 1919, the second of three sons. Both his brothers followed their father, Clifford D. Cunningham, into the legal profession. Cunningham first experienced dance while living in Centralia. He took

tap dance Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sounds of tap shoes striking the floor as a form of percussion. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm (jazz) tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses on dance; it is widely perfo ...

class from a local teacher, Mrs Maude Barrett, whose energy and spirit taught him to love dance. Her emphasis on precise musical timing and rhythm provided him with a clear understanding of musicality that he implemented in his later dance pieces. He attended the

Cornish College of the Arts Cornish College of the Arts (CCA) is a private art college in Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 1914. History Cornish College of the Arts was founded in 1914 as the Cornish School of Music, by Nellie Cornish (1876–1956), a teacher of pi ...

in Seattle, headed by

Nellie Cornish Nellie Centennial Cornish (1876 – 1956) was a pianist, teacher, writer, and founder of the Cornish School (now Cornish College of the Arts) in Seattle, Washington. She was influenced by the pedagogical ideas of Maria MontessoriNate Lippens, short ...

, from 1937 to 1939 to study acting, but found drama's reliance on text and miming too limiting and concrete. Cunningham preferred the ambiguous nature of dance, which gave him an outlet for exploration of movement. During this time,

Martha Graham Martha Graham (May 11, 1894 – April 1, 1991) was an American modern dancer and choreographer. Her style, the Graham technique, reshaped American dance and is still taught worldwide. Graham danced and taught for over seventy years. She wa ...

saw Cunningham dance and invited him to join her company. In 1939, Cunningham moved to New York City and danced as a soloist in the

Martha Graham Dance Company The Martha Graham Dance Company, founded in 1926, is known for being the oldest American dance company. Founded by Martha Graham as a contemporary dance company, it continued to perform pieces, revive classics, and train dancers even after Graham's ...

for six years. He presented his first solo concert in New York in April 1944 with composer

, who became his lifelong romantic partner and frequent collaborator until Cage's death in 1992. In the summer of 1953, as a teacher in residence at

Black Mountain College Black Mountain College was a private liberal arts college in Black Mountain, North Carolina. It was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier, and several others. The college was ideologically organized around John Dewey's educational ...

, Cunningham formed the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Throughout his career, Cunningham choreographed more than 200 dances and over 800 ''Events'', or site-specific choreographic works. In 1963 he joined with Cage to create the

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, t ...

's first performance, instigating what would be a 25-year collaborative relationship with the Walker. In his performances, he often used the ''

I Ching The ''I Ching'' or ''Yi Jing'' (, ), usually translated ''Book of Changes'' or ''Classic of Changes'', is an ancient Chinese divination text that is among the oldest of the Chinese classics. Originally a divination manual in the Western Zho ...

'' to determine the sequence of his dances and, often, dancers were not informed of the order until the night of the performance. In addition to his role as choreographer, Cunningham performed as a dancer in his company into the early 1990s. In 1968 Cunningham published his book ''Changes: Notes on Choreography'', edited by Francis Starr, containing various sketches of his choreography. Cunningham continued to live in New York City and lead his dance company as Artistic Director until his death. He presented his last work, a new work, ''Nearly Ninety'', in April 2009, at the

Brooklyn Academy of Music The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) is a performing arts venue in Brooklyn, New York City, known as a center for progressive and avant-garde performance. It presented its first performance in 1861 and began operations in its present location in ...

, New York, to mark his 90th birthday. Later that year he died in his home at the age of 90.

Merce Cunningham Dance Company

Cunningham formed Merce Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC) at

in 1953. Guided by its leader's radical approach to space, time and technology, the company has forged a distinctive style, reflecting Cunningham's technique and illuminating the near limitless possibility for human movement. The original company included dancers Carolyn Brown,

, Marianne Preger-Simon, Paul Taylor, and

, and musicians

and

. In 1964 the Cunningham Dance Foundation was established to support his work. MCDC made its first international tour in 1964, visiting Europe and Asia. From 1971 until its dissolution in 2012, the company was based in the

Westbeth Artists Community Westbeth Artists Housing is a nonprofit housing and commercial complex dedicated to providing affordable living and working space for artists and arts organizations in New York City. The complex comprises the full city block bounded by West, Be ...

in the

West Village The West Village is a neighborhood in the western section of the larger Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City. The traditional boundaries of the West Village are the Hudson River to the west, 14th Street (Manhattan ...

; for a time Cunningham himself lived a block away at 107 Bank Street, with John Cage. On July 20, 1999, Merce Cunningham and

Mikhail Baryshnikov Mikhail Nikolayevich Baryshnikov ( rus, Михаил Николаевич Барышников, p=mʲɪxɐˈil bɐ'rɨʂnʲɪkəf; lv, Mihails Barišņikovs; born January 28, 1948) is a Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Latvian-born R ...

performed together at the

New York State Theater The David H. Koch Theater is a theater for ballet, modern and other forms of dance, part of the Lincoln Center, at the intersection of Columbus Avenue and 63rd Street in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Originally ...

for Cunningham's 80th birthday. In its later years, the company had a two-year residency at Dia:Beacon, where MCDC performed ''Events'', Cunningham's site-specific choreographic collages, in the galleries of

Richard Serra Richard Serra (born November 2, 1938) is an American artist known for his large-scale sculptures made for site-specific landscape, urban, and architectural settings. Serra's sculptures are notable for their material quality and exploration o ...

Dan Flavin Dan Flavin (April 1, 1933 – November 29, 1996) was an American Minimalism, minimalist artist famous for creating sculpture, sculptural objects and installations from commercially available Fluorescent lamp, fluorescent light fixtures. Earl ...

, and

Sol LeWitt Solomon "Sol" LeWitt (September 9, 1928 – April 8, 2007) was an American artist linked to various movements, including conceptual art and minimalism. LeWitt came to fame in the late 1960s with his wall drawings and "structures" (a term he pref ...

, among others. In 2007, MCDC premiered ''XOVER'', Cunningham's final collaboration with Rauschenberg, at

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...

in New Hampshire. In 2009, MCDC premiered Cunningham's newest work, ''Nearly Ninety'', at the

. The company concluded its farewell tour on December 31, 2011, with a performance at the

Park Avenue Armory __NOTOC__ The Park Avenue Armory Conservancy, generally known as Park Avenue Armory, is a nonprofit cultural institution within the historic Seventh Regiment Armory building located at 643 Park Avenue on New York City's Upper East Side. The inst ...

Artistic philosophy

Collaboration

Merce Cunningham Dance Company frequently collaborated with visual artists, architects, designers, and musicians. Many of Cunningham's most famous innovations were developed in collaboration with composer

, his life partner. Cunningham and Cage used chance procedures to generate material, discarding many artistic traditions of narrative and form. Famously, they asserted that dance and its music should not be intentionally coordinated with one another. John Cage, after his death, was succeeded in the role of music director by

. After 1995, MCDC's music director was

Takehisa Kosugi was a Japanese composer, violinist and artist associated with the Fluxus movement. Biography Kosugi studied musicology at the Tokyo University of the Arts and graduated in 1962. He first became drawn to music listening to his father play ha ...

. MCDC commissioned more work from contemporary composers than any other dance company. Its repertory included works by musicians ranging from Cage and

Gordon Mumma Gordon Mumma (born March 30, 1935, in Framingham, Massachusetts) is an American composer. He is known most for his work with electronics, many devices of which he builds himself, and for his performances on horn. Biography Mumma entered the Univer ...

Gavin Bryars Richard Gavin Bryars (; born 16 January 1943) is an English composer and double bassist. He has worked in jazz, free improvisation, minimalism, historicism, avant-garde, and experimental music. Early life and career Born on 16 January 1943 in ...

, as well as popular bands like

Radiohead Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); brothers Jonny Greenwood (lead guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Greenwood (bass) ...

, Sigur Rós and

Sonic Youth Sonic Youth was an American rock band based in New York City, formed in 1981. Founding members Thurston Moore (guitar, vocals), Kim Gordon (bass, vocals, guitar) and Lee Ranaldo (guitar, vocals) remained together for the entire history of the b ...

. The company also collaborated with an array of visual artists and designers.

, whose famous "Combines" reflect the approach he used to create décor for several MCDC's early works, served as the company's resident designer from 1954 through 1964.

followed as Artistic Advisor from 1967 until 1980, and Mark Lancaster from 1980 through 1984. The last Advisors to be appointed were

William Anastasi William Anastasi (b. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1933) is an American visual artist working in a wide range of media including drawing, painting, sculpture, photographic works, and text. He has lived and worked in New York City since the early 19 ...

and Dove Bradshaw in 1984. Other artists who have collaborated with MCDC include

Daniel Arsham Daniel Arsham (born 1980) is an American artist. He lives and works in New York City. Early life and education Born in Cleveland, Ohio and raised in Miami, Florida, Arsham was 12 when Hurricane Andrew destroyed his childhood home. This trau ...

Tacita Dean Tacita Charlotte Dean CBE, RA (born 1965) is a British / German visual artist who works primarily in film. She was a nominee for the Turner Prize in 1998, won the Hugo Boss Prize in 2006, and was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in 2008. ...

, Liz Phillips,

Ernesto Neto Ernesto Saboia de Albuquerque Neto (born 1964, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) is a contemporary visual artist. Early career Ernesto Neto began exhibiting in Scotland in 1988 and has had solo exhibitions abroad since 1995. He represented with Vik M ...

Benedetta Tagliabue Benedetta Tagliabue (born 24 June 1963) is an Italian architect. She lives and works in Barcelona, Spain. Education Tagliabue was born in Milan, Italy. In 1989, she graduated in Venice from the " Università Iuav di Venezia" in Italy. Presentl ...

, and

Chance operations

Cunningham valued the process of a work over the product. Because of his strong interest in the creation of the choreography he used chance procedures in his work. A chance procedure means that the order of the steps or sequence is unknown until the actual performance and is decided by chance. For instance in his work ''Suite by Chance'' he used the toss of a coin to determine how to put the choreographed sequences together. Indeterminacy was another part of Cunningham's work. Many of his pieces had sections or sequences that were rehearsed so that they could be put in any order and done at any time. Although the use of chance operations was considered an abrogation of artistic responsibility, Cunningham was thrilled by a process that arrives at works that could never have been created through traditional collaboration. This does not mean, however, that Cunningham considered every piece created in this fashion a masterpiece. Those dances that did not "work" were quickly dropped from the repertory, while those that did were celebrated as serendipitous discoveries. Cunningham used "non-representational" choreography which simply emphasizes movement, and does not necessarily represent any historical narrative, emotional situation, or idea. Such non-representational dance appears in many styles throughout history, but was not commonly used by ballet or

, Cunningham's primary influences. In the use of chance procedures, Cunningham abandoned the more traditional structured form of dance. He did not believe that dance needs a beginning, middle or end.

Examples in works

In ''Sixteen Dances for Soloist'' and ''Company of Three'' (1951), Cunningham used Indeterminacy for the first time in this piece; the changing element for each show was the sequence of the sections. In ''Field Dances'' (1963), Cunningham experimented with giving the dancer more freedom. Each dancer was given a sequence of movements with which they could do as they pleased. This included exiting and entering at will, executing it in any order and as many times as desired. In ''Story'' (1963), Cunningham experimented with the variables of costumes and sets. Before each performance dancers chose an outfit from a pile of second-hand clothes picked out by the designer, Robert Rauschenberg. Rauschenberg was also responsible for creating a new set for every show with items he found in the theatre. ''Suite by Chance (1953)'' was his first work made entirely through chance procedures. Charts were created listing elements such as space, time, and positions. A coin was then tossed to determine each of these elements. ''Canfield'' (1969) was created by using playing cards. Each movement was assigned a playing card and chosen randomly.

Use of technology

Cunningham's lifelong passion for exploration and innovation made him a leader in applying new technologies to the arts. He began investigating dance on film in the 1970s, and after 1991 choreographed using the computer program LifeForms, a software made by Zella Wolofsky, Tom Calvert, and Thecla Schiphorst. Cunningham explored motion capture technology with digital artists Paul Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar to create ''Hand-drawn Spaces'', a three-screen animation that was commissioned by and premiered at

SIGGRAPH SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques) is an annual conference on computer graphics (CG) organized by the ACM SIGGRAPH, starting in 1974. The main conference is held in North America; SIGGRAPH Asia ...

in 1998. This led to a live dance for the stage, ''BIPED'', for which Kaiser and Eshkar provided the projected decor. In 2008, Cunningham released his ''Loops'' choreography for the hands as motion-capture data under a

Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...

license; this was the basis for the open-source collaboration of the same name with The OpenEnded Group. Cunningham was one of the first choreographers to begin experimenting with film. He created an original work for the video ''Westbeth'' (1974) in collaboration with filmmaker Charles Atlas The computer program later became DanceForms and uses avatars of dancers with color-coded limbs as a platform for choreography. In 2009, Cunningham's interest in new media led to the creation of the behind-the-scenes webcast ''Mondays with Merce''.

Perspective

The use of stage space also changed in Cunningham's choreography. The "front and centre" spot traditionally coveted by soloists no longer exists in his works. Dance can take place on any part of the stage; it need not even be frontally oriented, but can be viewed from any angle (at performances in Cunningham's studio, for instance, audiences are seated in an L-shaped configuration). The viewer's focus is never directed to a particular spot; he must often decide among many centres of activity. Merce Cunningham saw randomness and arbitrariness as positive qualities because they exist in real life. Most of Cunningham's choreographic process works to break the boundaries of "putting on a show," the removal of centre stage is an example of this—without a focal point for the audience, no one dancer or step holds the most value and can be seen as arbitrary... or not.

Legacy Plan

The Cunningham Dance Foundation announced the Legacy Plan (LLP) in June 2009. The Plan provided a roadmap for the future of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, as envisioned by Cunningham. The first of its kind in the dance world, the plan represented Cunningham's vision for continuing his work in the upcoming years, transitioning his company once he was no longer able to lead it, and preserving his oeuvre. The Legacy Plan included a comprehensive digital documentation and preservation program, which ensures that pieces from his repertory can be studied, performed and enjoyed by future generations with knowledge of how they originally came to life. By other provisions of the plan, the Merce Cunningham Trust, established by Cunningham to serve as the custodian for his works, controls his dances for licensing purposes; Cunningham associates prepared detailed records of the dances so they could be licensed and given authentic productions by other companies. Besides, the plan outlined a final international tour for the company, and, ultimately, the closure of the Cunningham Dance Foundation and Merce Cunningham Dance Company and the transfer of all assets to the Merce Cunningham Trust. From Merce's death at age 90 through the Board's last meeting in 2012, the Legacy Plan implemented his wish that the company complete a worldwide legacy tour and then close. The final performance of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company was on December 31, 2011, at the

in New York City. The final meeting of the board of directors for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company was held March 15, 2012, in Cunningham's studio at the top of the Westbeth building in the West Village.

Exhibitions

There have been numerous exhibitions dedicated to Cunningham's work. Also, his visual art is represented by Margarete Roeder Gallery. The major exhibition ''Invention: Merce Cunningham & Collaborators'' at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts closed on October 13, 2007. ''Merce Cunningham: Dancing on the Cutting Edge'', an exhibition of recent design for MCDC, opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, in January 2007. A trio of exhibitions devoted to John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, and Merce Cunningham, curated by Ron Bishop, was shown in the spring of 2002 at the Gallery of Fine Art, Edison College, Fort Myers, Florida. A major exhibition about Cunningham and his collaborations, curated by Germano Celant, was first seen at the

Fundació Antoni Tàpies The Fundació Antoni Tàpies (, 'Antoni Tàpies Foundation') is a cultural center and museum, located in Carrer d'Aragó, in Barcelona, Catalonia. It is dedicated mainly to the life and works of the painter Antoni Tàpies. The Fundació was crea ...

in Barcelona in 1999, and subsequently at the Fundação de Serralves, Porto, Portugal, 1999; the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna, 2000; and the Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Castello di Rivoli, Turin, 2000.

Works

Cunningham choreographed almost 200 works for his company. ''Suite for Five'' (1956–1958)
Music: John Cage, Music for Piano
Costumes: Robert Rauschenberg
Lighting:

Beverly Emmons ''Beverly Emmons'' (b. December 12, 1943)
filmreference.com, accessed November 1, 2011 is an American lighting ...

''Crises'' (1960)
Music: Conlon Nancarrow (from Rhythm Studies for Player Piano)
Costumes, Lighting: Robert Rauschenberg ''Rainforest'' (1968)
Music: David Tudor
Décor: Andy Warhol (Silver Clouds)
Costumes: Jasper Johns (uncredited)
Lighting: Richard Nelson ''Second Hand'' (1970)
Music: John Cage, (Cheap Imitation)
Décor & Costumes: Jasper Johns
Lighting: Richard Nelson (1970) Christine Shallenberg (2008) ''Sounddance'' (1975)
Music: David Tudor, Toneburst & Untitled (1975/1994)
Décor, Lighting, Costumes: Mark Lancaster ''Fabrications'' (1987)
Music: Emanuel Dimas de Melo Pimenta, Short Waves & SBbr
Décor, Costumes: Dove Bradshaw
Lighting: Josh Johnson ''CRWDSPCR'' (1993)
Music: John King, blues 99
Décor, Lighting, Costumes: Mark Lancaster ''Ocean'' (1994)
Music: David Tudor, Soundings: Ocean Diary and Andrew Culver, Ocean 1–95
Décor, Lighting, Costumes: Marsha Skinner ''BIPED'' (1999)
Music: Gavin Bryars, Biped
Décor: Paul Kaiser, Shelley Eshkar
Costumes: Suzanne Gallo
Lighting: Aaron Copp ''Split Sides'' (2003)
Music: Radiohead, Sigur Rós
Décor: Robert Heishman, Catherine Yass
Costumes: James Hall
Lighting: James F. Ingalls ''Views on Stage'' (2004)
Music: John Cage, ASLSP and Music for Two
Décor: Ernesto Neto, Other Animal
Costumes: James Hall
Lighting: Josh Johnson ''eyeSpace'' (2006)
Music: Mikel Rouse, International Cloud Atlas
Décor: Henry Samelson, Blues Arrive Not Anticipating What Transpires Even Between Themselves
Costumes: Henry Samelson
Lighting: Josh Johnson ''eyeSpace'' (2007)
Music: David Behrman, Long Throw and/or Annea Lockwood, Jitterbug
Décor:

, ODE/EON
Costumes:

Lighting: Josh Johnson ''XOVER'' (2007)
Music: John Cage, Aria (1958) and Fontana Mix (1958)
Décor & Costumes: Robert Rauschenberg, Plank
Lighting: Josh Johnson ''Nearly Ninety'' (2009)
Music:

John Paul Jones John Paul Jones (born John Paul; July 6, 1747 July 18, 1792) was a Scottish-American naval captain who was the United States' first well-known naval commander in the American Revolutionary War. He made many friends among U.S political elites ( ...

Décor: Benedetta Tagliabue
Costumes: Romeo Gigli for io ipse idem
Lighting: Brian MacDevitt
Video Design: Franc Aleu

Honors and awards

2009
Jacob's Pillow Dance Award
Skowhegan Medal for Performance 2008
Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 2007
Nelson A. Rockefeller Award, Purchase College School of the Arts, State University of New York
Montgomery Fellow (Arts and Literature), Dartmouth College, Hanover NH 2006
Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle WA 2005
Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis MN
Premium Imperiale, Tokyo 2004
Officier of the Légion d'Honneur, France 2003
Edward MacDowell Medal in interdisciplinary art, the MacDowell Colony, Peterborough NH 2002
Kitty Carlisle Hart Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts ( Arts & Business Council), New York NY
MATA (Music at the Anthology) Award, New York NY
Medal of the City of Dijon, France 2001
Coat of Arms of the City of Mulhouse, France
La Grande Médaille de la Ville de Paris (echelon vermeil) from the Mayor of Paris
Career Transition for Dancers Award, New York NY
Herald Archangel Award, Glasgow, Scotland
Village Award,

Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation Village Preservation (formerly the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, or GVSHP) is a non-profit organization which advocates for the preservation of architecture and culture in several neighborhoods of Lower Manhattan, New York. ...

, New York
Honorary degree from Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia 2000
Nijinsky Special Prize, Monaco

The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize or Gish Prize is given annually to "a man or woman who has made an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind's enjoyment and understanding of life." It is among the most prestigious and on ...

, New York NY
Named a "Living Legend" by the Library of Congress, Washington DC 1999
Premio Internazionale "Gino Tani," Rome
Handel Medallion from the Mayor of New York City NY
Isadora Duncan Dance Award for Lifetime Achievement, San Francisco CA
Fellow of the Academy of Performing Arts, Hong Kong
The key to the City of Montpellier, France 1998
Bagley Wright Fund Established Artists Award, Seattle WA 1997
Barnard College Medal of Distinction, New York NY
Grand Prix of the Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques, France 1996
Nellie Cornish Arts Achievement Award from his alma mater, Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle WA 1995
Honorary degree from Wesleyan University, Middletown CT
Carina Ari Award (Grand Prix Video Danse with Elliot Caplan), Stockholm, Sweden
Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale, Italy 1993
Inducted into the National Museum of Dance's Mr & Mrs Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, NY
Dance and Performance Award for Best Performance by a Visiting Artist, London, England
Medal of Honor from the Universidad Complutense of Madrid, Spain
(With John Cage, posthumously) the Wexner Prize of the Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University, Columbus OH
New York Dance and Performance Award ("Bessie"), New York NY
Tiffany Award from the International Society of Performing Arts Administrators, New York NY 1990
National Medal of Arts, Washington DC
Porselli Prize, Italy
Digital Dance Premier Award, London, England
Award of Merit from the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, New York NY 1989
Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur, France 1988
Dance/USA National Honor, New York NY 1987
Algur H. Meadows Award for Excellence in the Arts, Southern Methodist University, Dallas TX 1985
Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production (Pictures), London, England
Kennedy Center Honors, Washington DC
MacArthur Fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Chicago IL 1984
Inducted as an Honorary Member into the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, New York NY 1983
The Mayor of New York's Award of Honor for Arts and Culture, New York NY 1982
The Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival Award, Durham NC
Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France 1977
Capezio Award, New York NY 1975
New York State Award, Albany NY 1972

BITEF The Belgrade International Theatre Festival (abbr. BITEF) is a theatre festival that takes place every September annually in Belgrade, Serbia. History Founded in 1967, BITEF has continually followed and supported the latest theatre trends. It ...

Award,

Belgrade Belgrade ( , ;, ; Names of European cities in different languages: B, names in other languages) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers a ...

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

Honorary degree from the University of Illinois, Champaign/Urbana IL 1966
Gold Medal for Choreographic Invention at the Fourth International Festival of Dance, Paris 1964
Medal of the Society for the Advancement of Dancing in Sweden, Stockholm 1960
Dance Magazine Award, New York NY 1959 & 1954
Fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, New York NY

Footnotes

Sources

* Bredow, Moritz von. 2012. "Rebellische Pianistin. Das Leben der Grete Sultan zwischen Berlin und New York." (Biography, 368 pp, in German).

Schott Music Schott Music () is one of the oldest German music publishers. It is also one of the largest music publishing houses in Europe, and is the second oldest music publisher after Breitkopf & Härtel. The company headquarters of Schott Music were fou ...

, Mainz, Germany. (Biography on pianist Grete Sultan, John Cages's and Merce Cunningham's close friend. Many aspects regarding Cage and Cunningham!) *Bremser, M. (Ed) (1999), ''Fifty Contemporary Choreographers''. Routledge. *Cunningham, Merce (1968), ''Changes/Notes on Choreography''. Something Else Press. *Cunningham, M. and Lesschaeve, J. (1992), ''The Dancer and the Dance''. Marion Boyars Publishers. *Vaughan, David (1999), ''Merce Cunningham: Fifty Years''. Aperture. *Vaughan, D. and Cunningham, M. (2002), ''Other Animals''. Aperture. *Kostelanetz, R. (1998), ''Merce Cunningham: Dancing in Space and Time''. Da Capo Press. *Brown, Carolyn (2007), ''Chance and Circumstance: Twenty Years with Cage and Cunningham''. Alfred A. Knopf. Biography 53750

External links

Merce Cunningham Trust

Merce Cunningham Dance Company

Archival footage of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company performing in ''Sounddance'' in 2009 at Jacob's Pillow.

Kennedy Center biography

Archive footage of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company performing Cunningham's piece Banjo in 1955 at Jacob's Pillow

a
Electronic Arts Intermix

Merce Cunningham ìn the Mediateca Media Art Space
*

— ''Daily Telegraph'' obituary
''Guardian'' Obituary

Obituary
in the ''

Star-Gazette The ''Star-Gazette'' is the major newspaper for Elmira, New York. Based in Elmira, the publication is owned by Gannett Gannett Co., Inc. () is an American mass media holding company headquartered in McLean, Virginia, in the Washington, D.C. ...

''
''New York Times'' Obituary 28 July 2009.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cunningham, Merce 1919 births 2009 deaths 20th-century American dancers American choreographers Ballets by Merce Cunningham Black Mountain College faculty Cornish College of the Arts alumni Cornish College of the Arts faculty Dancers from Washington (state) George Washington University alumni Kennedy Center honorees LGBT artists from the United States LGBT choreographers LGBT dancers American LGBT entertainers LGBT people from Washington (state) MacArthur Fellows Modern dancers National Dance Award winners Officiers of the Légion d'honneur People from Centralia, Washington United States National Medal of Arts recipients Wesleyan University people