Merce and the midgets 2
Nov
20
2010
Researching Merce Cunningham Trust trustee and former Cunningham dancer, Patricia Lent, I came across this post-911 story — a sweet tale so well written in the New York Times by Jennifer Dunning. The story concerns a class of P.S. 234 third graders taught by Ms. Lent, then a school teacher. She takes her kids to ...
merce misha mashup 2
“Farewell Merce Cunningham Dance Company” weekend in Los Angeles was capped by a bonus performance in which Mikhail Baryshnikov appeared with the company. It was a fundraiser for the Cunningham Dance Foundation’s “Legacy Project” and REDCAT. Charles Atlas, with whom the choreographer collaborated on multiple video projects over thirty years, presented his film homage to Merce — ...
Merce’s marvelous Irish jig 3
Co-published on Huffington Post arts page “It was unutterably moving to watch,” said long time company archivist David Vaughan of the historic reconstruction of “Roaratorio” (1983) that graced Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s fare-thee-well performances at Walt Disney Concert Hall this weekend. “We all feel Merce in the dance.” Indeed, watching company elder Robert Swinston, 60, ...
Neil Greenberg chats about Roaratorio
May
24
2010
“You really see people dancing. It’s especially clear that this was a concern of Merce’s. There’s a lot of humanity in this work.” Thus choreographer Neil Greenberg remembers Roaratorio, the Merce Cunningham work dating from 1983 that will be restaged at Disney Concert Hall next weekend. A member of Merce Cunningham Dance Company from 1979 ...
L.A. Music Center co-commissions revival of Merce Cunningham work
May
10
2010
It gave me pause to learn that the Los Angeles Music Center had co-commissioned the revival of Roaratorio, a major work dating from 1986 that Merce Cunningham Dance Company will soon present in L.A. That’s really cool. I had to read it twice. Choreographer Neil Greenberg, who performed in the piece while a Cunningham dancer, ...
Merce Cunningham (1919 – 2009)
Jul
27
2009
It’s difficult to select a photo of Merce Cunningham. They are all so fabulous. Here’s an Annie Leibowitz portrait from 1994. Although I reviewed the company several times, I published only two feature pieces on Merce, one in 1984 in Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, and another in La Opinion in 2005. I first studied ...