Spend Mondays with Merce Cunningham

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Illustration of Merce Cunningham. Courtesy of Newscom

Merce Cunningham is frequently called the greatest living choreographer, and his company, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, is hailed as a showcase for some of the most skilled dancers in the world. And now, this cultural icon has taken to the Internet with Mondays with Merce, a second season of short documentary videos that take viewers behind the scenes of his latest masterpiece.

The webisodes cover the creative process behind Nearly Ninety, which premiered at the Howard Gilman Opera House of the Brooklyn Academy of Music in April on the event of Cunningham’s 90th birthday. The New York Times’s Alastair Macaulay enthusiastically wrote that although not perfect, the choreography proved that Cunningham is “the greatest living artist since the death of Samuel Beckett, almost 20 years ago.” With lavish décor, intricate moves and stunningly accomplished dancers, Nearly Ninety continues Cunningham’s questioning of the medium itself.

Two dancers perform in Merce Cunningham's Event at the Museum of Reina Sofia in Spain. Photo by Pierre-Philippe Marcou/Newscom

For over 50 years, the Company has been performing pieces that work against our easy conceptions of dance, including the very basic questions like what constitutes a solo. The dancers shift between solos, duets, trios and quartets in a movement that recalls an organic form that is always natural, never constructed. His choreographic style is perhaps a product of his long relationship with the late composer John Cage, with whom he brought about many radical innovations in the arts. Chance becomes paramount in Cunningham’s work, and the narrative devices at work in dance (like cause and effect) are replaced by more inventive structures.

Cunningham, although already a staple of American choreography, is no stranger to using the latest technology to push possibilities. In the 1970s, he was already working with dance and film combinations, and his seminal dance, BIPED (1999), used motion capture technology in the stage décor. The Mondays with Merce series engages with the choreographer on many different levels of the creative process, from original idea to the final performance, and includes interludes on techniques and influences. It is a valuable addition to both the Company and Web video at large, as it skillfully probes Cunningham’s interactions with other visual and performance artists.

The first episode of the new season airs today, and will be followed by three more videos that will be released every two weeks thereafter.