Merce Cunningham was the greatest of the American poets of dance. His
star rose at a crucial time and the constellation of Merce, Martha
Graham, and George Balanchine made New York the dance center of the
world. The leonine Merce was avant-garde, revolutionary, and curious,
of course, but he was also, perhaps most importantly, an extraordinary
teacher. His work was often aesthetically uncomfortable (separating
music from dance in a cognitive way and presenting both forms together
without narrative or symbolic relation, using the music of Radiohead
[?!?!] in his choreography), but always energized, and dance will carry
his influence well into the ages. Tonight the angels are learning to
dance all over again in Heaven. 


Alive (for Merce Cunningham)
By Annmarie Lockhart

deconstruct
strip it down
break it apart
and see what the pieces each do
when you throw them back together again/
leave them to chance
not random
not improv
not narrative
not symbol/
every element all its own/
alive/
and he
was alive
and we
were alive
and dance
came alive