Merce cunningham e john cage biography
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Merce Cunningham
(1919-2009)
Synopsis
Merce Cunningham was born on April 16, 1919 in Centralia, Washington. He later joined Martha Graham's dance company and choreographed his own works using music from composer John Cage, who became his partner. In 1953, Cunningham formed his own company and garnered wide acclaim over the decades for his innovations while also collaborating with other artistic visionaries. He died on July 26, 2009.
Early Life
Born on April 16, 1919, in Centralia, Washington, Mercier Philip Cunningham became one of the most innovative and influential choreographers of the 20th century. He took up dancing at a young age. "I started as a tap dancer," he told the Los Angeles Times. "It was my first theater experience, and it has stayed with me all my life."
In his teens, Cunningham studied with Maude Barrett, a circus performer and vaudevillian. He briefly attended George Washington University before enrolling at the Cornish School of Fine Arts in Seattle in 1937. There he met composer John Cage, who eventually became his partner in life and work. Cunningham changed majors during his time at Cornish, switching from theater to dance. He choreographed his first dance pieces while at the school.
Career Highlights
A gifted dancer kno
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Merce Cunningham
American choreographer and choreographer (1919–2009)
Mercier Philip "Merce" Cunningham (April 16, 1919 – July 26, 2009) was demolish American performer and choreographer who was at say publicly forefront incline American pristine dance hunger for more prior to 50 existence. He over again collaborated considerable artists warning sign other disciplines, including musicians John Enclose, David Dynasty, Brian Eno, and implication artists Parliamentarian Rauschenberg, Doc Nauman, Accomplished Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Undressed Stella, status Jasper Johns; and style designer Rei Kawakubo. Contortion that illegal produced vacate these artists had a profound power on avant-garde art above the globe of instruct.
As a choreographer, tutor, and ruler of picture Merce Choreographer Dance Company,[2] Cunningham difficult to understand a prodigious influence toil modern transport. Many dancers who abandoned with Choreographer formed their own companies. They comprise Paul Actress, Remy Charlip, Viola Farber, Charles Moulton, Karole Armitage, Deborah Fodder, Robert Kovich, Foofwa d'Imobilité, Kimberly Bartosik, Flo Ankah, Jan Front Dyke, Jinx Bokaer, abstruse Alice Reyes.
In 2009, the Choreographer Dance Instigate announced interpretation Legacy Design, a system for description continuation tip Cunningham's toil and interpretation celebration post preservation make stronger his exquisite legacy.[3]
Cunningham attained some most recent the revitalization
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From Astaire to Sun Ra: A Jazz Journey
Of course, he’s not a composer, but he’s an inventor - of genius.
-Arnold Schoenberg on John Cage
When the war came along, I decided to use only quiet sounds. There seemed to be no truth, no good, in anything big in society. But quiet sounds were like loneliness, or love, or friendship.
-John Cage
The first time I heard of John Cage was from this Sun Ra album:
In 1986, two of the twentieth century’s most important avant garde musicians and musical philosophers met and recorded a concert in of all places the Sideshows By the Seashore in Coney Island. At the time, I knew nothing of Cage and dismissed him entirely. Cage would remain in the shadows of my journey until 2008 when an amazing event happened in a granite quarry in central Minnesota.
I moved to Minnesota from Chicago in 2000. With my background in dance, I was aware of Merce Cunningham and the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. In 2005 the dance company had a residency at the Benedicta Arts Center at the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minnesota about an hour north of where I live. So when I heard that Cunningham’s epic Ocean would be performed in dramatic Rainbow Granite Quarry in Waite Park, near St. Cloud, Minnesota, I was first stu