Merce Cunningham was an American choreographer, ballet dancer and dancer, born in 1919 in Centralia, who died in 2009. This page lists 1 work credited to Cunningham as choreographer, including Gambit.
Biography
Mercier "Merce" Philip 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, David Tudor, Brian Eno, and graphic artists Robert Rauschenberg, Bruce Nauman, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella, and Jasper Johns; and fashion designer Rei Kawakubo. 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. Many dancers who trained with Cunningham formed their own companies. They include Paul Taylor, Remy Charlip, Viola Farber, Charles Moulton, Karole Armitage, Deborah Hay, Robert Kovich, Foofwa d'Imobilité, Kimberly Bartosik, Flo Ankah, Jan Van Dyke, Jonah Bokaer, and Alice Reyes.
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 and the MacArthur Fellowship. He also received Japan's Praemium Imperiale and a British Laurence Olivier Award, and was named Officier of the Légion d'honneur 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, New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, White Oak Dance Project, and London's Rambert Dance Company.
Works choreographed by Merce Cunningham
| Title | Type | Premiere |
|---|---|---|
| Gambit | dramatico-musical work | — |
Quotes
“If a dancer dances - which is not the same as having theories about dancing or wishing to dance or trying to dance or remembering in his body someone else's dance - but if the dancer dances, everything is there.. ..our ecstasy in dance comes from the possible gift of freedom, the exhilarating moment that this exposing of the bare energy can give us. What is meant is not license, but freedom...(1952)”
“John Cage and I became interested in the use of chance in the 50's. I think one of the very primary things that happened then was the publication of the "I Ching," the Chinese book of changes, from which you can cast your fortune: the hexagrams.”
“I was working on a title called, “Untitled Solo,” and I had made—using the chance operations—a series of movements written on scraps of paper for the legs and the arms, the head, all different. And it was done not to the music but with the music of Christian Wolff.”
More Merce Cunningham quotes →
Contemporaries
Matteo Vittucci
American ballet dancer and choreographer (1919-2011)
Tamara Toumanova
Russian ballet dancer (1919-1996)
Marge Champion
American dancer and actress (1919–2020)
Ruthanna Boris
American ballet dancer and choreographer (1919-2007)
Jeanne Beaman
American choreographer (1919–2020)
Anna Halprin
American dancer (1920–2021)
Karel Shook
American ballet teacher and company director (1920-1985)
Jerome Robbins
American choreographer and director (1918–1998)
Facts from Wikidata (Q318364), CC0.