Mercier Philip " Merce " Cunningham (April 16, 1919 - July 26, 2009) is an American dancer and choreographer at the forefront of modern American dance for more than 50 years. He is also renowned for his frequent collaborations with artists from other disciplines, including musicians John Cage and David Tudor, and artists Robert Rauschenberg and Bruce Nauman. The work he produces with these artists has a huge impact on avant-garde art outside the world of dance.
As a choreographer, teacher and leader of Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Cunningham has a major influence on modern dance. Many dancers who practice with Cunningham form their own company. They include Paul Taylor, Remy Charlip, Viola Farber, Charles Moulton, Karole Armitage, Robert Kovich, Foofwa d'Imobilità © ©, Kimberly Bartosik, Flo Ankah, Jan Van Dyke, Jonah Bokaer, and Alice Reyes.
In 2009, the Cunningham Dance Foundation announced the Inheritance Plan, a precedent plan for the continuation of Cunningham's work and the celebration and preservation of his artistic heritage.
Cunningham earned the highest honors awarded in art, including the National Medal of Arts and the MacArthur Fellowship. He also received the Japanese Imperiale Praemium and Laurence Olivier Award from England, and was named Officier of LÃÆ' Â © gion d'honneur in France.
Cunningham's life and artistic vision have been the subject of many books, films and exhibitions, and his works have been presented by groups including Paris Opéra Ballet, New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theater, White Oak Dance Project, and London. Rambert Dance Company.
Video Merce Cunningham
Biography
Merce Cunningham was born in Centralia, Washington in 1919, the second of three sons. Both brothers followed their father, Clifford D. Cunningham, into the legal profession. Cunningham first experienced a dance while living in Centralia. He took a tap class from a local teacher, Ny. Maude Barrett, whose energy and passion taught him to love dance. His emphasis on the timing of music and the right rhythm gave him a clear understanding of the musicality he applied in his later work. He attended the Cornish School in Seattle, led by Nellie Cornish, from 1937 to 1939 to study acting, but found drama dependence on text and miming that was too restrictive and concrete. Cunningham prefers the ambiguous nature of the dance, which gives him a way out for exploration of movement. During this time, Martha Graham saw Cunningham dance and invited her to join her company. In 1939, Cunningham moved to New York and danced as a soloist at the Martha Graham Dance Company for six years. He presented his first solo concert in New York in April 1944 with composer John Cage, who became his life partner and often became a collaborator until Cage's death in 1992.
In the summer of 1953, as a teacher living at Black Mountain College, Cunningham formed the Merce Cunningham Dance Company.
During his career, Cunningham made more than 200 dance choreographies and more than 800 "Events," or special choreographic work of the location. In 1963 he joined Cage to create the first performance of the Walker Art Center, inciting what would be a 25 year collaborative relationship with Walker. In her appearance, she often uses I Ching to determine her dance sequence and, often, the dancer is not informed of the order until the evening of the show. In addition to his role as a choreographer, Cunningham appeared as a dancer in his company until the early 1990s.
In 1968 Cunningham and Francis Starr published a book, Changes: Choreographic Notes , containing various sketches of their choreography.
He continued to lead the company until his death, and presented a new work, Almost Ninety, in April 2009, at the Brooklyn Music Academy of New York to mark his 90th birthday.
Cunningham lives in New York City, and Artistic Director of Merce Cunningham Dance Company. He died at his home at the age of 90.
Maps Merce Cunningham
Merce Cunningham Dance Company
Cunningham formed the Merce Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC) at Black Mountain College in 1953. Guided by his leader's radical approach to space, time and technology, the Company has forged a distinctive style, mirroring Cunningham's techniques and illuminating infinite possibilities for human movement.
Original companies include dancers Carolyn Brown, Viola Farber, Paul Taylor, and Remy Charlip, and musicians John Cage and David Tudor. In 1964, the Cunningham Dance Foundation was established to support his work.
MCDC toured its first international tour in 1964, visiting Europe and Asia.
From 1971 until dissolution in 2012, the company is based at Westbeth Artists Community in West Village; for a while Cunningham himself lived a block away at 107 Bank Street, with John Cage.
On July 20, 1999, Merce Cunningham and Mikhail Baryshnikov performed together at the State Theater of New York for Cunningham's 80th birthday.
In subsequent years, the company had a two-year residency at Dia: Beacon, where the MCDC conducted Events, a special choreography collage of the Cunningham site, in Richard Serra, Dan Flavin, and Sol LeWitt galleries among others. In 2007, the inaugural MCDC XOVER, Cunningham's final collaboration with Rauschenberg, at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. In 2009, MCDC aired Cunningham's latest work, Almost Ninety , at the Brooklyn Music Academy. The company ended its farewell tour on December 31, 2011.
Artistic philosophy
Collaboration
Merce Cunningham Dance Company often collaborates with visual artists, architects, designers, and musicians.
Many of Cunningham's most famous innovations were developed in collaboration with composer John Cage, his life partner. Cunningham and Cage use stochastic (random) procedures to produce matter, throwing away many of the artistic traditions of narration and form. Famous, they insist that dance and music should not be coordinated with one another.
After his death, John Cage succeeded in the role of music director by David Tudor. After 1995, MCDC's music director was Takehisa Kosugi. MCDC assigns more jobs than contemporary composers than any other dance company. His treasures include works by musicians ranging from John Cage and Gordon Mumma to Gavin Bryars and popular bands like Radiohead, Sigur RÃÆ'³s and Sonic Youth.
The company also collaborates with various artists and visual designers. Robert Rauschenberg, whose famous "Combine" reflects the approach he used to create dà ©  © cast for a number of early MCDC works, serving as a resident company designer from 1954 to 1964. Jasper Johns followed as an Art Counsel from 1967 to 1980, and Mark Lancaster from 1980 to 1984. The last appointed counsel was William Anastasi and Dove Bradshaw in 1984. Other artists who have collaborated with MCDC include Daniel Arsham, Tacita Dean, Liz Phillips, Rei Kawakubo, Roy Lichtenstein, Bruce Nauman, Ernesto Neto, Frank Stella, Benedetta Tagliabue, and Andy Warhol.
Chance Operation
John Cage and I are interested in the use of opportunities in the 50s. I think one of the most important things that happened then was the publication of the book "I Ching," a book of Chinese change, from which you can cast your wealth: the hexagram.
Cage took it to work on the way to composition later; and he uses the idea of ​​64 - the number of hexagrams - to say that you have 64, for example, a sound; then you can cast, by chance, to find which sounds first appear, thrown again, to say which sounds are coming second, thrown again, so that it is done by, in that sense, operating an opportunity. Instead of figuring out what you think should follow - say a certain voice - what does the I Ching suggest? Well, I took this also for dancing . I'm working on a title titled, "Untitled Solo," and I've made - using an opportunity operation - a series of movements written on pieces of paper for legs and arms, heads, all different. And it's done not for music but with Christian Wolff music.
Cunningham appreciates the workmanship of the product. Due to his strong interest in choreographic creation, he uses accidental procedures in his work. Procedure procedure means sequence order or sequence is not known until actual performance and decided by chance. For example in his Suite by Opportunity he uses a coin toss to determine how to structure a choreographic sequence together. Uncertainty is another part of Cunningham's work. Many parts have parts or sequences that are trained so they can be put in any order and done at any time. Although the use of accidental operations is considered a cancellation of artistic responsibility, Cunningham is pleased with the process that comes to works that could never be created through traditional collaboration. This does not mean, however, that Cunningham considers any work created in this fashion as a masterpiece. Dances that do not "work" quickly descend from the treasury, while what is done is celebrated as a coincidence discovery.
Cunningham uses "non-representational" choreography that emphasizes movement only, and does not necessarily represent historical narratives, emotional situations, or ideas. Such non-representational dances appear in many styles throughout history, but are not commonly used by ballet or Martha Graham, Cunningham's main influences. In using accidental procedures, Cunningham abandoned a more traditional dance form; he did not believe that a dance requires a beginning, a middle or an end.
Sample in works
In Sixteen Dances for Solois and Company Three (1951) Cunningham uses Uncertainty for the first time in this section and the element of change for each show is a sequence of sections.
In Field Dances (1963), Cunningham experimented with giving the dancers more freedom. Each dancer is given the order of movements they can do with what they like. This includes exit and entry at will, performing them in any order and at whatever time they wish.
In Story (1963) Cunningham experimented with costume variables and sets. Before every dancer of the show chooses the clothes from the pile of used clothes chosen by the designer, Robert Rauschenberg. Rauschenberg was also responsible for creating a new set of performances with items he could find in the theater.
In Suite by Chance (1953) it was his first work that was made entirely through accidental procedures. Charts created list elements such as space, time, and position. A coin is then cast to determine each of these elements.
Canfield (1969) This work is made by using playing cards. Each movement is given a play card and is randomly selected.
Technology usage
Cunningham's lifelong passion for exploration and innovation has made him a leader in applying new technologies to the arts. He began investigating dance in films in the 1970s, and after 1991 choreographers used the DanceForms computer program. Cunningham explored motion capture technology with digital artists Paul Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar to create Hand-drawn Spaces, a three-screen animation commissioned by and premiered at SIGGRAPH in 1998. This resulted in a live dance for the stage, BIPED , in which Kaiser and Eshkar provide projected decorations. In 2008, Cunningham released a choreography Loops for his hands as motion-capture data under a Creative Commons license; this is the basis for open source collaboration with the same name as The OpenEnded Group. Cunningham was one of the first choreographers to start experimenting with films. He created the original work for the video Westbeth (1974). It works closely with filmmaker Charles Atlas
In 2009, Cunningham's interest in new media led to the making of a behind-the-scenes webcast Monday with Merce .
Perspective
The use of the stage space also changed in Cunningham's choreography. The 'front and center' places traditionally coveted by solo players no longer exist in his works. Dance can take place at any stage of the stage; it does not even need to be oriented forward, but can be seen from many angles (at the show at Cunningham's own studio, for example, the audience is sitting in an L-shaped configuration). Audience focus is never directed to a specific place; he must often decide among many centers of activity.
Merce Cunningham sees randomness and arbitrariness as positive qualities because they exist in real life. Most of Cunningham's choreography process works to break the boundaries of "performing a show," the removal of the center stage is an example of this, without a focal point for the audience, no dancers or steps that hold the greatest value and can be seen as arbitrary... or no.
Inheritance Package
The Cunningham Dance Foundation announced the Inheritance Plan (LLP) in June 2009. The plan provides a road map for the future of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, as envisaged by Cunningham. The first of its kind in the world of dance, the plan symbolizes Cunningham's vision of continuing his work in the coming years, transforming his Company once he is no longer able to lead it, and preserving his oeuvre.
The Inheritance Plan includes a comprehensive documentation and conservation program that will ensure that the pieces of his treasury can be learned, practiced and enjoyed by future generations with knowledge of how they originally lived. With other provisions of the plan, the Merce Cunningham Trust, founded by Cunningham to serve as a guard for his work, takes control of his dance for licensing purposes; Cunningham colleagues prepared detailed records of the dance so that they could be licensed and given authentic production by other companies. In addition, to ensure the authenticity of his oeuvre presentation after Cunningham was no longer able to lead his Company, the plan outlines the last international tour for the Company, and, finally, the closure of the Cunningham Dance Foundation and the Company Merce Cunningham Dance and the transfer of all assets to Merce Cunningham Trust. From Merce's death at the age of 90 through the Board's last meeting in 2012, the Legacy Plan implements its wish that the Company complete the world heritage tour and then close. December 31, 2011 is the last appearance of Merce Cunningham Dance Company.
The last meeting of the Board of Directors for Merce Cunningham Dance Company was held March 15, 2012, at Cunningham's studio at the Westbeth building in the West Village.
Cunningham's approach is always in incorporating technology and dance performances, leading to inspiration of 3D movies that are set to be directed by Dance in Movie leader Alla Kovgan
Exhibition
There are many exhibitions dedicated to Cunningham's work. In addition, he is a visual artist represented by Margarete Roeder Gallery.
Main exhibit Invention: Merce Cunningham & amp; Collaborator at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts closed on October 13, 2007.
Merce Cunningham: Dancing at Edge Cutting , a recent design exhibition for MCDC, opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, in January 2007.
An exhibit trio devoted to John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg and Merce Cunningham, curated by Ron Bishop, was shown in the spring of 2002 at the Fine Arts Gallery, Edison College, Fort Myers, Florida.
A large exhibition of Cunningham and its collaboration, curated by Germano Celant, was first seen in FundaciÃÆ'³ Antoni TÃÆ' pies in Barcelona in 1999, and later at FundaÃÆ'§ÃÆ' £ o de Serralves, Porto, Portugal, 1999; Modern Museum Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna, 2000; and Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Castello di Rivoli, Turin, 2000.
Work
Cunningham makes almost 200 choreographic works for his company.
Suite for Five (1956-1958)
Music: John Cage, Music for Piano
Costume: Robert Rauschenberg
Lighting: Beverly Emmons
Crisis (1960)
Music: Conlon Nancarrow (from Study of Rhythms to Piano Players)
Costume, Lighting: Robert Rauschenberg
Hutan Hujan (1968)
Musik: David Tudor
DÃÆ' © cor: Andy Warhol (Silver Clouds)
Kostum: Jasper Johns (uncredited)
Pencahayaan: Richard Nelson
Second Hand (1970)
Music: John Cage, (Cheap Imitation)
DÃÆ'Â Â cast & amp; Costume: Jasper Johns
Lighting: Richard Nelson (1970) Christine Shallenberg (2008)
Sounddance (1975)
Musik: David Tudor, Toneburst & amp; Tanpa judul (1975/1994)
DÃÆ' © cor, Pencahayaan, Kostum: Mark Lancaster
Fabrication (1987)
Music: Emanuel Dimas de Melo Pimenta, Short Wave & amp; SBbr DÃÆ' Â © cast, Costume: Dove Bradshaw
Lighting: Josh Johnson
CRWDSPCR (1993)
Musik: John King, blues 99
DÃÆ' © cor, Pencahayaan, Kostum: Mark Lancaster
Ocean (1994)
Musik: David Tudor, Soundings: Ocean Diary dan Andrew Culver, Ocean 1-95
DÃÆ' © cor, Pencahayaan, Kostum: Marsha Skinner
BIPED (1999)
Musik: Gavin Bryars, Biped
DÃÆ' © cor: Paul Kaiser, Shelley Eshkar
Kostum: Suzanne Gallo
Pencahayaan: Aaron Copp
Split Sides (2003)
Musik: Radiohead, Sigur RÃÆ'³s
DÃÆ' © cor: Robert Heishman, Catherine Yass
Kostum: James Hall Pencahayaan: James F. Ingalls
Stage Display (2004)
Music: John Cage, ASLSP, and Music for Two Sites DÃÆ' Â © cast: Ernesto Neto, Other Animals Costume: James Hall Lighting: Josh Johnson
eyeSpace (2006)
Music: Mikel Rouse, Atlas of the International Clouds DÃÆ' Â © cast: Henry Samelson, Blues Arrived Not Anticipating What Even Penetrates Between Alone
Costume: Henry Samelson
Lighting: Josh Johnson
eyeSpace (2007)
Musik: David Behrman, Long Throw dan/atau Annea Lockwood, Jitterbug
DÃÆ' © cor: Daniel Arsham, ODE/EON Kostum: Daniel Arsham
Pencahayaan: Josh Johnson
XOVER (2007)
Musik: John Cage, Aria (1958) dan Fontana Mix (1958)
DÃÆ' © cor & amp; Kostum: Robert Rauschenberg, Plank
Pencahayaan: Josh Johnson
Nearly Nineties (2009)
Music: John Paul Jones, Takehisa Kosugi, Youth Sonic
DÃÆ' Â © cast: Benedetta Tagliabue
Costume: Romeo Gigli for io ipse idem
Lighting: Brian MacDevitt
Video Design: Franc Aleu
Awards and awards
2009
Jacob's Pillow Dance Award - Skowhegan Medal for Performance
2008
Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts dari Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
2007
Nelson A. Rockefeller Award, Art College Purchase, State University of New York
Montgomery Fellow (Art and Literature), Dartmouth College, Hanover NH
2006
Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, Cornish College of Arts, Seattle WA
2005
Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters, Universitas Minnesota, Minneapolis MN
Praemium Imperiale, Tokyo
2004
Honorary Territory Officer, France
2003
Edward MacDowell Medal in interdisciplinary art, MacDowell Colony, Peterborough NH
2002
Kitty Carlisle Hart Award for Extraordinary Achievement in Arts (Arts & Business Council), New York NY
Eye Awards (Music in Anthology), NY New York Dijon City Medal, France
2001
Coat of Arms of Mulhouse, France La Grande MÃÆ'Â © daille de la Ville de Paris (eselon vermeil) of the Mayor of Paris
Transition Career for Dancer Award, New York NY
Herald Archangel Award, Glasgow, Scotland
Village Award, Historic Preservation Society of Greenwich Village, New York
Honors degree from Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia
2000
Nijinsky Special Prize, Monaco
Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, NY New York
Named "Living Legends" by the Library of Congress, Washington DC
1999
Premio Internazionale "Gino Tani," Rome
Handel Medallion from NY Mayor New York City Isadora Duncan Dance Award for Lifetime Achievement, San Francisco CA
Fellow Performing Arts Academy, Hong Kong
The Key to Montpellier City, France
1998
Bagley Wright Fund Established Artist Award, Seattle WA
1997
Barnard College Medal of Distinction, NY New York | Grand Prix of the Writers Association and Composer Drama, France
1996
Nellie Cornish Arts Achievement Award dari almamaternya, Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle WA
1995
Honors degree from Wesleyan University, Middletown CT
Carina Ari Award (Grand Prix Video Danse with Elliot Caplan), Stockholm, Sweden
The Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale, Italy
1993
Inaugurated as Dance's National Museum. & amp; Madame Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, NY Dance and Performance Award for Best Performance by Guest Artist, London, UK
Medal of Honor from Universidad Complutense Madrid, Spain
(Together with John Cage, posthumously) Wexner Prize from Wexner Art Center at Ohio State University, Columbus OH
New York Dance and Performance Award ("Bessie"), NY New York Tiffany Award from the Administration of Organizers of the International Trade Society, New York NY
1990
National Medal of Arts, Washington DC
Porselli Prize, Italy Digital Dance Premier Awards, London, UK
Merit Award from the Association of Performing Arts Presenter, New York NY
1989
Knight of the Honorary Region, Perancis
1988
Dance/USA National Honor, New York NY
1987
Algur H. Meadows Award for Excellence in Art, Southern Methodist University, Dallas TX
1985
Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production (Photo), London, UK
Kennedy Center Honors, Washington DC Hotel MacArthur Fellowship from John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Chicago IL
1984
Appointed as Honorary Member into the Academy and the American Arts and Literature Institute, New York NY
1983
Mayor of New York Award of Honor for Arts and Culture, New York NY
1982
Samuel H. Scripps Award/American Dance Festival, Durham NC Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, France
1977
Awards Capezio, NY New York
1975
The State of New York Award, Albany NY
1972
Awards BITEF, Belgrade, Yugoslavia
Honorary degree from the University of Illinois, Champaign/Urbana IL
1966
Gold Medal for Choreography Discoveries at the Fourth International Dance Festival, Paris
1964
Medal of Society for the Progress of Dancing in Sweden, Stockholm
1960
Dance Magazine Awards, NY New York
1959 & amp; 1954
Scholarship from John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, New York NY
Footnote
Source
- Bredow, Moritz von. 2012. "Rebellische Pianistin Das Leben der Grete Sultan zwischen Berlin and New York." (Biography, 368 pp, in German). Schott Music, Mainz, Germany. ISBN 978-3-7957-0800-9 (Biography of Grete Sultan pianist, close friend of John Cages and Merce Cunningham Many aspects about Cage and Cunningham!)
- Bremser, M. (Ed) (1999), Fifty Contemporary Choreographers . Routledge. ISBNÃ, 0-415-10364-9
- Cunningham, Merce (1968), Changes/Notes on Choreography . Something else Press.
- Cunningham, M. and Lesschaeve, J. (1992), Dancers and Dances . Publisher Marion Boyars. ISBNÃ, 0-7145-2931-1
- Vaughan, David (1999), Merce Cunningham: Fifty Years . Aperture. ISBNÃ, 0-89381-863-1
- Vaughan, D. and Cunningham, M. (2002), Other Animals . Aperture. ISBN 978-0-89381-946-0
- Kostelanetz, R. (1998), Merce Cunningham: Dancing in Space and Time . Da Capo Press. ISBN: 0-306-80877-3
- Brown, Carolyn (2007), Twenty-Year Opportunities and Conditions with Cage and Cunningham . Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN: 978-0-394-40191-1 Biography 53750
External links
o Merce Cunningham Trust
- Merce Cunningham Dance Company
- Archive records from the Merce Cunningham Dance Company which appeared in Sounddance in 2009 at Jacob's Pillow.
- Bio artist DLAR
- PBS: Biography of the American Masters
- Biography of the Kennedy Center
- Archive records from Merce Cunningham Dance Company featuring Banjo Cunningham pieces in 1955 on Jacob's Pillow
- Biography of the American Ballet Theater
- Merce Cunningham Movies & amp; Videos on Electronic Arts Intermix
- Merce Cunningham ÃÆ''n Mediateca Media Art Space
- Merce Cunningham on IMDb
- Merce Cunningham - Daily Telegraph obituary
- Guardian Obituaries
- Obituary in Star-Gazette
- New York Times Obituary July 28, 2009.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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