Choreographer Margaret Jenkins on Merce Cunningham’s 90th Birthday
I think Merce doesn’t particularly like birthdays, but he was completely elegant and eloquent on his night, April 16, 2009. His new work filled the BAM Opera House with his unique physical language – full of gestural nuance and mystery and, as always, the music, dance and décor met for the first time that night. As predictable, there were many opinions of the work itself, but the occasion was touching and humbling, energizing and remarkable. Karen Brooke Hopkins, the president of BAM, spoke after the performance of Merce’s influence over decades on how we see and what we think we know.
I thought of the generations of witnesses – the dancers and students that have “moved” through his life and of my first encounter, now over 46 years ago, when he landed at UCLA. My mind and heart and body found a home. As the subsequent years unfolded, I found my voice, a different voice perhaps, but one which was clearly launched by being in proximity to Merce in a variety of ways, by studying and practicing, listening, teaching, experimenting and assisting.
I am grateful for his tenacity and rigor, his insistence on excellence, his faith in what I might come to be, his stories of a life lived fully and on the edge and for the fleeting moments he has given so many of us when we feel truly alive.
Margaret Jenkins on the occasion of Merce Cunningham’s 90th Birthday celebration at Brooklyn Academy of Music on April 16, 2009.
