Dance Masters: Merce Cunningham
Throughout his lifetime, choreographer Merce Cunningham decimated boundaries of modern and post-modern dance. To this day, dancers from the Cunningham company are still carrying on his legacy through tributes, classes, and performances. Some examples of members of the Cunningham legacy that are influencing the current dance landscape are Jeff Slayton: founder of the LA Dance Chronicle, Paige Caldarella-Cunningham: Chicago-based choreographer and Professor of Dance at Columbia College Chicago, and Silas Reiner: renowned New York based dancemaker. Our very own danceCREATE Program Manager Leah Zeiger had the chance to study under Paige Caldarella-Cunningham’s direction and learn the Cunningham Technique.
“Paige always quoted Merce Cunningham when we got frustrated with the difficulty of the technique. She’d tell us what ‘Merce said often - ‘The only way to do it is to do it’ - and that quote piece of advice has stayed with me throughout my career.”
Taking inspiration from his early training with the renowned Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham codified his own technique that centered the body at the pelvis and required rigorous effort from himself and his dancers. The Cunningham Technique requires a strong ballet foundation, immense control and strength in the back and torso, and the ability to find balance and stability in the most unstable of positions.
Cunningham defied traditional choreographic theories through inducting his well-known “chance procedure” - a choreographic tool in which he would roll a die, pull a card, or use some other method of randomized decision making when it came to aspects of the dance such as positions of the limbs and torso, and music, set, and costume choices. One of the most profound ways in which he would implement chance procedure is by choreographing a work without music, and adding the music on the night of the performance, without the dancers having ever heard the score. Cuningham would decide exactly how long the work would be by using a stopwatch, and would rehearse the piece over and over until they were always on time - not a second over or under. Then, he would go to a composer and ask for a piece of music that was exactly that amount of time. Because of this revolutionary method, any moments in Cunningham’s work in which the music seems to line up with the movement, or in which the music seems to be telling the story with the movement, are purely coincidental.
“Dancing for me is movement in time and space. Its possibilities are bound only by our imaginations and our two legs.”
Cunningham’s collaborations also defined his career. One of his lifelong partners - John Cage - was essential in his creative process and was a beloved musical collaborator for decades. Cunningham also held long standing relationships with costume designers and set designers, most notably Robert Rauschenberg, and their addition to his works has continued to shape his legacy. His role as a collaborator and teacher was just as important to him as his role as a dance maker and performer. He valued innovation in media arts and often used technology in ways never seen before by the concert dance world.
“Light or luminosity is created by the way elements are juxtaposed. They become reflective and a radiance comes from putting different things together.”
Throughout his seven decade career, Merce Cunningham created 180 repertory dances and more than 700 “Events” - which were performances in which he would weave movement phrases from various choreographic works into an event that could be performed in any setting.
Since his death in 2009, his plans for his legacy have been carried out by the Merce Cunningham Trust. Performances have been brought back to life, classes in the Cunningham Technique have continued (you can take free Instagram Live classes from the Trust’s account every Monday through Friday at 10am PST), and there has even been a documentary produced of a recent Event called Night of 100 Solos.
Click on the image below for a short clip from “Biped” - one of Cunningham’s seminal works. You can watch more footage, as well as learn more about Cunningham’s life, legacy, and current classes and events, on the Merce Cunningham Trust’s website.
