The dance world will be absorbing the loss of Merce
Cunningham, one of the field’s true innovators, for some time. Because he was
always moving forward—often with the rest of us lagging behind—by exploring new
and adventurous possibilities for dance, we became accustomed to always having
the next unexpected project emerge from his endlessly inventive imagination.
This creativity and curiosity never flagged, right to the end. He produced a majestic two-act, full-evening work, Nearly Ninety, in April. Over the past two years, he designed a series of eight events for the gallery spaces at Dia:Beacon that challenged—at times perplexed—audiences, with multiple stages and simultaneous activity, even as he isolated and intermingled sections from his vast repertory.
Last Sunday afternoon, hours before Cunningham passed away, his company gave the last of six performances of an invigorating, beautifully contrasting program at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. The three works spanned more than 30 years of his output, yet represented only half of his incredibly fertile choreographic career. They exemplified his ability to capture the unpredictable beauties of nature, the quirky obsessiveness of modern behavior and his full range, from haunting to wickedly witty. As usual, they challenged—and presumably startled—some audience members with their sound scores, which included the distribution of iPods for the 2006 eyeSpace that let viewers have an individually shuffled audio experience. The program concluded with a fierce performance of Sounddance (with a pulsating David Tudor score that feels like a tour of a construction site) that had the audience standing and cheering.
Always au courant with the latest in technological
advances, Cunningham, while at home in
Those who attended performances earlier in the week reported that—true to a now venerable tradition—a handful of the Berkshires crowd (which tends to skew older) headed for the exits during each performance. But on Sunday, the audience skewed especially young, thanks to the presence of children drawn by the family-oriented activities of the Pillow’s morning Community Day that morning. The tykes were attentive and captivated, and it is bittersweet to realize that—with Cunningham’s troupe having announced last month that it would perform for two more years then disband, these youngsters represent the last generation to have seen this exceptional, unique company on stage.
They will perform this weekend in three free events at
Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Sat (
