Cunningham, Merce, 1919-2009

Merce Cunningham is a choreographer.

He started his career as a dancer with Martha Graham's company, and then left to start his own company. The company, which was created over 50 years ago, is still flourishing. Merce Cunningham was born in Centralia, Washington. He first started formal dance training at the Cornish Institute of Allied Arts in Seattle. From 1939 to 1945 he was a soloist in the Martha Graham Company. While performing with Martha Graham, Cunningham began to choreograph independently, and presented his first New York solo concert with John Cage in 1944. He continued to present annual concerts by himself or with an ad hoc group of dancers, until the formation of Merce Cunningham Dance Company at Black Mountain College in the summer of 1953. Since that time he has choreographed well over one hundred works for his Company. Cunningham has also choreographed two works for the New York City Ballet, and the Paris Opera Ballet. Throughout the years he has collaborated with many well-known people and organizations, including the Boston Ballet, the filmmaker Charles Atlas, and Elliot Caplan. The Merce Cunningham Dance Company was born in the summer of 1953. Cunningham took a group of dancers who had been working with him to Black Mountain College, the progressive liberal arts school in North Carolina. The group included Carolyn Brown, Remy Charlip, Viola Farber and Paul Taylor. John Cage was musical director and David Tudor the Company musician. Both men have continued to be associated with the Company. The Company has toured all over the world to great praise. Music and art have been an integral part of the choreography and the Company has worked with many world-renowned artists, including Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Mark Lancaster, Charles Atlas and Elliot Caplan.

Merce Cunningham was born in Centralia, Washington. He first started formal dance training at the Cornish Institute of Allied Arts in Seattle. From 1939 to 1945 he was a soloist in the Martha Graham Company. While performing with Martha Graham, Cunningham began to choreograph independently, and presented his first New York solo concert with John Cage in 1944. He continued to present annual concerts by himself or with an ad hoc group of dancers, until the formation of Merce Cunningham Dance Company at Black Mountain College in the summer of 1953. Since that time he has choreographed well over one hundred works for his Company.

Cunningham has also choreographed two works for the New York City Ballet, and the Paris Opera Ballet. Throughout the years he has collaborated with many well-known people and organizations, including the Boston Ballet, the filmmaker Charles Atlas, and Elliot Caplan.

The Merce Cunningham Dance Company was born in the summer of 1953. Cunningham took a group of dancers who had been working with him to Black Mountain College, the progressive liberal arts school in North Carolina. The group included Carolyn Brown, Remy Charlip, Viola Farber and Paul Taylor. John Cage was musical director and David Tudor the Company musician. Both men have continued to be associated with the Company.

The Company has toured all over the world to great praise. Music and art have been an integral part of the choreography and the Company has worked with many world-renowned artists, including Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Mark Lancaster, Charles Atlas and Elliot Caplan.

Merce Cunningham (1919-2009) was a dancer, choreographer, and founder of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. He was born in Centralia, Washington and began his professional modern dance career at age 20, dancing as a soloist with the Martha Graham Dance Company for six years. Cunningham showed promise as a choreographer and presented his first solo show in 1944, acting as both dancer and choreographer.

He formed Merce Cunningham Dance Company at Black Mountain College in 1953. The company provided a platform for collaboration with John Cage, the musical advisor from its inception until his death in 1992. Together, Cunningham and Cage proposed a number of innovations; the most famous of these concerned the relationship between dance and music. While they conceded they should occur in the same time and space, they felt they should be created independently of one another. Cunningham also collaborated with Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, and many others. For Cunningham, the subject of his dances was always dance itself.

Invention and reinvention were a hallmark of the Merce Cunningham Company, and a new genre, the Event, rose from these experiments. Cunningham would splice together different elements from past compositions - solos, duets, costumes, décor, and music to create wholly new experiences - giving new meaning to each piece as it was removed from its original context. Over his career he created over 150 individual works and more than 800 Events.

During the 1970s, Cunningham began to explore filming dance as an art form. In 1989 he began experimenting with composing dances on the computer and Trackers (1991) became his first piece composed in this way. Cunningham danced with the company as he aged, and even after he began to use a wheelchair, continued to choreograph.

After Cunningham's death in 2009, the company embarked on its final, two-year world tour.