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"You have to love dancing to stick to it. It gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you feel alive. It is not for unsteady souls."
-Merce Cunningham
Merce Cunningham is widely recognized as the greatest living choreographer. Earlier in his career he was also one of the greatest American dancers.
After five years as a soloist in the company of Martha Graham, he began choreographing independently, first in solo concerts, then in 1953 he formed his own company, whose fiftieth anniversary was celebrated in 2003. In his many works for the company, he has been noted for his collaborations with contemporary visual artists and musicians, especially with John Cage, his life partner from the 1940s until Cage’s death in 1992. In the course of their work together, they proposed a number of radical innovations. The most famous and controversial of these concerned the relationship of dance and music, both of which are time arts. Therefore, they came to the conclusion that the two should exist independently, occurring in the same time and space but without supporting or being connected to one another in the usual way.
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Merce Cunningham Dance Company
55 Bethune St.
New York, NY 10014 Get Directions
