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<<NEARLY 90^2>>, LE TESTAMENT DANSÈ DE MERCE CUNNINGHAM

Paris, France (Dec 5, 2009) By Rosita Boisseau, Le Monde

Plus joueur, difficile de trouver. Sans artifice ni volonté de <<créer l’évènement>>, comme on dit, le chorégraphe Merce Cunningham, mort le 26 juillet à 90 ans, aura tenu son pari d’invention permanente jusq’au bout.

‘THIS PROBABLY ISN’T POSSIBLE, BUT…’
New York, NY (April 12, 2009) By Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times
“Nearly Ninety,” a new work by the choreographer Merce Cunningham, will have its world premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Thursday. The title makes sense: Mr. Cunningham turns 90 that day, and the choreography runs nearly 90 minutes. There are other Cunningham anniversaries this year. Ten years ago this July, on the stage of the New York State Theater, he was awarded the city’s highest cultural award, the Handel Medallion.

BEING ALONE TOGETHER IN CUNNINGHAM'S WORLD

Beacon, NY (Dec 9, 2008) By Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times

"Love consists in this," the poet Rilke wrote in a famous passage, "that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other."  On Saturday and Sunday the choreographer Merce Cunningham's two Events at Dia:Beacon began with multiple solitudes: all 14 of his dancers pacing around a huge L-shaped space (the audience sat on two outer sides of the L, facing a Sol LeWitt white sculpture on the inner side), all doing more or less the same steps but never at the same time and never making connections.

WHAT MERCE ASSEMBLED AT AN OLD FORD PLANT

Richmond, CA (Dec 4, 2008) By David Littlejohn, The Wall Street Journal

For Robert Cole's 23rd and final season as director of Cal Performances at Berkeley -- which he made into the most adventurous high-quality performing arts organization in the country -- he invited back a number of artists he has been promoting and presenting here for many years, and 15 international troupes -- including three Russian ballet companies.  But, with the exception of Mark Morris, Mr. Cole has depended on no artist so much, year after year, as the legendary choreographer Merce Cunningham, who made his 13th visit to Berkeley in November, and will celebrate his 90th birthday next April.

EXPERIMENTS IN THE STUDIO - CURTIS BAHN, KEIKO UENISHI, ALEX WATERMAN

New York, NY (Nov 25, 2008)

Merce Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC) presents the second concert in its new season of Experiments in the Studio on Monday, December 1 at 8:30 PM, at the Merce Cunningham Studio.  Building off a stunning season premiere with vocalist Joan La Barbara, the series resumes with a concert showcasing the work of three diverse composers/performers: Curtis Bahn, Keiko Uenishi, and Alex Waterman.

MERCE CUNNINGHAM DANCE COMPANY, RICHMOND, CALIFORNIA

Richmond, CA (Nov 11, 2008) By Allan Ulrich, Financial Times

If you are Merce Cunningham, almost no environment is hostile to the creation of dances that are at once austere and lustrous, primal and complex. Last Sunday found the illustrious choreographer, now 89 and wheelchair-bound, leading the revels at northern California’s Ford Point. Designed in 1930 by the industrial architect Albert Kahn, this erstwhile car plant boasts an enviable space – a craneway pavilion that soars 65 feet to its skylights and commands, on three sides, a heartstopping view of San Francisco Bay.

EXPERIMENTS IN THE STUDIO - JOAN LA BARBARA

New York, NY (Oct 8, 2008)

Merce Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC) opens its second season of Experiments in the Studio on Monday, November 17 at 8:30 PM, at the Merce Cunningham Studio. Building off of a successful first season, the series returns featuring an exciting new slate of musicians.  This concert celebrates the work of composer/performer Joan La Barbara. Recognized as “one of the great vocal virtuosas of our time" (San Francisco Examiner), La Barbara has performed her own music for Cunningham Events as well as sung John Cage’s Aria in Cunningham’s most recent work, XOVER (2007).

MERCE CUNNINGHAM AT THE BARBICAN

London, UK (Oct 2, 2008) By Debra Craine, The Times

With each passing year, visits by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, with the choreographer himself at the
helm, become ever more precious. The grandfather of American modern dance is now 89, frail and confined to a
wheelchair, but here he was taking a curtain call on the opening night of this year’s Dance Umbrella festival.
There is no one quite like Cunningham, who has spent more than 50 years creating dances of uncompromising
rigour, works so pure in concept and pristine in execution that they can take your breath away.

MERCE CUNNINGHAM DANCE CO, BARBICAN THEATRE, LONDON

London, UK (Oct 2, 2008) By Zoë Anderson, The Independent

Some stage pictures are instantly gripping. When the curtain goes up on Merce Cunningham's Crises, two dancers
stand some distance apart. They're turned at an angle to each other, poised but watchful. Light slants through a
haze. In a moment, Crises has a powerful use of stage space and atmosphere. It's a knockout from its first second.

MULTIDIMENSIONAL MOVEMENTS ECHO THE DEPTHS AND HORIZONS OF THE SEA

Waite Park, MN (Sept 15, 2008) By Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times

We speak of space and the body as both being three-dimensional. As the Merce Cunningham Dance Company danced his 90-minute work “Ocean” on a specially erected stage in the Rainbow Quarry here on Thursday and Friday nights, it often seemed that the dimensions of each were doubled.

MERCE CUNNINGHAM'S 'OCEAN'

Waite Park, MN (Sept 13, 2008) By Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times

with its mammoth, magnificent 150-foot rock walls -- lies 70 miles northwest of Minneapolis. To get to it, you pass by Granite City Counseling, and some might say that Merce Cunningham needed just that for undertaking perhaps the most impractical and magnificent production of his career in his 90th year. Thursday night, his Merce Cunningham Dance Company made an "Ocean" in the quarry.

MUSIC, DANCE COME TOGETHER IN LANDMARK 'OCEAN' PERFORMANCE

Waite Park, MN (Sept 12, 2008) By Adam Hammer, St. Cloud Times

The stars didn’t shine over the stage at the bottom of the Rainbow Quarry on Thursday evening, and a few stray drops of rain even fell. But that didn’t stop the opening night performance of the sold-out landmark production of Merce
Cunningham Dance Co.’s “Ocean.” The modern dance was presented in all of its grandeur with a 150-member local orchestra, 14 dancers and a crowd of about 1,200, all in-the-round and 100 feet below ground.

A DANCE SET IN STONE

Waite Park, MN (Sept 12, 2008) By Graydon Royce, Star Tribune

This is granite country. A stone's throw from the smiley face on Waite Park's water tower, is "Senior living at its best" in Granite Ridge Village. Down the road is the 500-acre Quarry Park and Nature Preserve, and 15 miles away is Cold Spring Granite -- among the world's largest quarries. So it seems inevitable that granite would play a role in the unlikely story of how downtown New York dancers landed in a Waite Park quarry. Minnesota's cultural event of the season is the result of whimsy and coincidence, of rock crushers rubbing elbows with the avant garde.

SOMETHING EXTRAORDINARY HAPPENED IN A MINNESOTA QUARRY LAST NIGHT

Waite Park, MN (Sept 11, 2008) By Jeff Severns Guntzel, MinnPost

A quarry town on the outskirts of St. Cloud with a population just shy of 7,000 — something extraordinary is happening this week. More than 3,000 people have tickets for that sold-out something. One million dollars has been spent to make it happen. Its architect is Merce Cunningham, the 89-year-old man — wheelchair-bound and with
a wild nest of white hair — who sat yesterday at dusk at the bottom of a Waite Park granite quarry, 150 feet below the Earth's surface, watching and waiting.

DANCE HITS ROCK BOTTOM WITH UNIQUE SETTING OF 'OCEAN'

Waite Park, MN (Sept 11, 2008) By Euan Kerr, Minnesota Public Radio

If you are a modern dance lover, the place to be this weekend is the bottom of a quarry in central Minnesota. Thousands of people will travel to St. Cloud to see the Merce Cunningham Dance Company perform "Ocean" on a specially-constructed stage, 150-feet below ground level.

WALKING TO AND FRO TO EYE DANCE, SKY AND SCULPTURE

Beacon, NY (July 8, 2008) By Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times

To return to Merce Cunningham’s choreography, no matter how good or bad any other dance you may have been watching of late, is to have the palate cleansed. At first you just see movement, much of which is neither pretty nor obviously expressive, but it’s always substantial, complex, arresting.

BEACON EVENT AT DIA:BEACON

Beacon, NY (June 2, 2008) Merce Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC) will conduct the fourth residency of the two-year Hudson Valley Project, culminating in performances of Beacon Event on Saturday, July 5 at 2 PM and Sunday, July 6 at 2 PM and 4:30 PM at Dia:Beacon, Riggio Galleries, within the galleries devoted to Richard Serra’s monumental steel sculptures, Torqued Ellipses.

EXPERIMENTS IN THE STUDIO - FINAL CONCERT OF FIRST SEASON

New York, NY (May 28, 2008) Merce Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC) presents the sixth concert of Experiments in the Studio on Monday, June 23 at 8:30 PM in the Merce Cunningham Studio. The concert unites the diverse experimental composer/performers Newton Armstrong, David Linton, Maria Chavez, and Stephan Moore, featuring a solo performance by each, as well as a group improvisation to wrap up the evening. This occasion promises to be a meeting of innovative minds, as Chavez’s avant-turntablism meets Armstrong’s knob-covered one-of-a-kind electronic instruments, Moore’s idiosyncratic performance software, and Linton’s Bicameral Research Sound and Projection System.

ALOFT AND CLOSE TO NATURE, FINE-FEATHERED BIRDS IN CONSTANT FLUX

Beacon, NY (May 20, 2008) By Claudia La Rocco, The New York Times

The glorious expanses of Robert Ryman’s paintings always seduce on a first tour through his galleries at Dia:Beacon. As you get closer, you are taken in anew by the details. Rich edgings of vibrant color appear where there seemed to be only white. Thick ridges of paint complicate not-so-pristine surfaces.

RAUSCHENBERG AND DANCE, PARTNERS FOR LIFE

New York, NY (May 14, 2008) By Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times

Something inherently theatrical about Robert Rauschenberg’s talent — always evident in his radical feeling for color, light, composition and new ingredients and juxtapositions —prompted him to his boldest and freshest conceptions when he worked onstage. From the early 1950s until 2007 he designed for dance. And in the late ’50s and early ’60s, when he first came to fame, he was recurrently (at times constantly) occupied in dance theater.

MERCE CUNNINGHAM STUDIO FACULTY CONCERT

New York, NY (May 7, 2008) On Friday, June 13 and Saturday, June 14, 2008 at 8:30 PM, the Merce Cunningham Studio presents a diverse evening of dance and music featuring two choreographic works by Merce Cunningham as well as contemporary work by faculty members Louise Burns, Janet Charleston, Jean Freebury, and Daniel Squire.

BEACON EVENT AT DIA:BEACON

Beacon, NY (April 15, 2008) MCDC will conduct the third residency of the two-year Hudson Valley Project, culminating in performances of Beacon Event on Sunday May 18 at 2 PM and 4:30 PM at Dia:Beacon, Riggio Galleries, within the galleries devoted to Bruce Nauman.

EXPERIMENTS IN THE STUDIO

New York, NY (April 9, 2008) MCDC presents the fifth concert of Experiments in the Studio on Monday, May 5 at 8:30 PM in the Merce Cunningham Studio. The concert unites experimental composer/performers Richard Teitelbaum (MCDC composer/performer in the 1970s), Miguel Frasconi (for his first MCDC-presented performance), Marina Rosenfeld (MCDC composer/performer 2004–05) and David Behrman (MCDC Music Committee Member, MCDC composer/performer since 1967). The program features three world premieres, Miguel Frasconi’s These Intertwined Portraits (2008), Richard Teitellbaum’s Piano Tree (2008), and Marina Rosenfeld's mirror mirror (2008), as well as David Behrman’s Freeze Dip (2008). Additional performers include Hiroko Sakurazawa for Piano Tree, Robert Black for Freeze Dip, and J.G.Thirlwell for mirror mirror. All four composer/performers will come together again later in the month on Sunday, May 18 to perform for the third Beacon Event, part of MCDC’s Hudson Valley Project residency at Dia:Beacon.

THE DANCE HAS A MEANING, BUT THAT'S NOT THE POINT

Washington DC (March 29, 2008) By Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times

When Merce Cunningham made Second Hand in 1970, he was already internationally established as the foremost nonballet creator of dances that were about dancing, that had no messages, that were, in Susan Sontag’s phrase, “against interpretation.”

EXPERIMENTS IN THE STUDIO: AN EVENING WITH TAKEHISA KOSUGI

New York, NY (March 7, 2008) MCDC presents the fifth concert of Experiments in the Studio on Monday, March 31 at 8:30 PM, at the Merce Cunningham Studio. This concert celebrates the work of composer/performer Takehisa Kosugi. Currently residing in Osaka, Kosugi has performed worldwide with MCDC since 1977 and has been the Company’s Musical Director since 1995. The concert will mark his first solo appearance in New York City since 1988 and coincides with his 70th birthday celebration. The program features 3 electro-acoustic compositions including the world premiere of Multiplex, Organic Music (1962), and South E.V. (1999). The performance will be technically assisted by Stephan Moore.

HISTORY MATTERS: A LIVING ARCHIVAL PRESENTATION

New York, NY (February 27, 2008) MCDC presents its fourth installment of History Matters—a series developed by Assistant to the Choreographer Robert Swinston—on Monday, March 24, 2008 at 7 PM in the Merce Cunningham Studio. MCDC and distinguished artists will examine the creative life of Merce Cunningham during the 1980s by discussing dances, filmdances and videodances of that period. Noted panelists Merce Cunningham, MCDC Archivist David Vaughan, Patricia Lent (MCDC dancer 1984–1993) and filmmaker Elliot Caplan will guide audience members through a program including excerpts of filmdances Channels/Inserts (1981 Charles Atlas) and Coast Zone (1983 Charles Atlas), and videodances Points in Space (1986 Caplan) and Changing Steps (1988 Caplan). In addition, members of MCDC and the Repertory Understudy Group will perform excerpts of Fielding Sixes (1980), Trails (1982), Roaratorio (1983), and Doubles (1984).

Beacon, NY (January 14, 2008) By Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times

Because dance occurs in both time and space, it operates upon us as a demonstration of physics. This aspect becomes arresting in the work of two choreographers alone: George Balanchine and Merce Cunningham. Mr. Cunningham has often quoted Einstein's dictum "there are no fixed points in space," and since the 1980s some of the ensembles in his work have struck observers as riveting enactments of chaos theory.

New York, NY (December 11, 2007) Merce Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC) presents the third concert of “Experiments in the Studio” on Monday January 7 at 8:30 PM in the Merce Cunningham Studio. This concert unites four New York City-based experimental composer/performers for the first time as a group: George Lewis (MCDC composer/performer 2004–05), Fast Forward (MCDC composer/performer 1994–97), Zeena Parkins (for her first MCDC-presented performance), and John King (MCDC composer/performer since 1985).

PARIS FLOCKS TO A CUNNINGHAM REVIVAL: WORKS THAT REMAIN FRESH

Paris, France (December 10, 2007) - By Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times

Among the American cultural phenomena that the French have taken to their collective heart (le jazz hot, le film noir, etc.), surely nothing is more surprising than the success of the choreographer Merce Cunningham over several decades... American dance currently has no finer or more constantly rewarding export.

BEACON EVENT AT DIA:BEACON
Beacon, NY (December 3, 2007) Merce Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC) will conduct the second residency of the two-year Hudson Valley Project, culminating in performances of Beacon Event on January 12 and 13, 2008 at 2 PM at Dia:Beacon, Riggio Galleries, within the galleries devoted to Walter De Maria’s Equal Area Series.

MERCE CUNNINGHAM, MOVER AND SHAKER

New York, NY (December 2, 2007) - Photograph by Robert Maxwell, Text by Alex Hawgood, The New York Times

The redoubtable Merce Cunningham has never been one to follow a routine. In a career spanning more than six decades, Cunningham has purposefully composed pieces without informing his dancers of the music; incorporated the art of Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol and Bruce Nauman into his dances; and, in collaboration with his long-time partner John Cage, used the I Ching to determine a performance.

ELECTRONIC PIONEER WITH TIES TO DANCE

New York, NY (November 21, 2007) - By Steve Smith, The New York Times

The choreographer Merce Cunningham has played an invaluable role in fostering the creation of a substantial body of contemporary American music over the last half-century. "Experiments in the Studio," a new series at Mr. Cunningham's West Village headquarters, is taking stock of that impetus through concerts largely devoted to composers who have been associated with the company. Gordon Mumma, who worked with Mr. Cunningham from 1966 to 1974, was the subject of the second installment, on Monday night.

BROAD AND LIVELY FESTIVAL LEAVES AUDIENCES STIMULATED, DANCING

Melbourne, Australia (October 29, 2007) - By Hilary Crampton and Jo Roberts, The Age

...In the end, however, all agreed that the award for the most outstanding show belonged to the Merce Cunningham Dance Company's Program A, featuring works spanning more than 50 years of invention, risk and stunningly beautiful dance from a master choreographer who has influenced all the arts and, at 88, continues to engage with new generations of collaborators.

MASTERFUL BRUSH STROKES OF DANCE

Melbourne, Australia (October 26, 2007) - By Hilary Crampton, The Age

Watching Suite for Five, first presented in the late 1950s, is like watching a master calligrapher. One sees each action, unfolding like brush strokes on a scroll. It is spare, clean movement, exposing Cunningham's detailed exploration of the body's architecture and its movement capabilities.

EXPERIMENTS IN THE STUDIO: AN MCDC NEW MUSIC SERIES PRESENTS GORDON MUMMA

New York, NY (October 26, 2007) Merce Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC) presents the second concert of Experiments in the Studio on Monday November 19 at 8:30 PM in the Merce Cunningham Studio. This concert celebrates the music of Gordon Mumma (whose primary activity with MCDC was 1966–1974 as composer/performer), bringing five pieces to New York City for the first time. Performers include Gordon Mumma (piano and live electronics), Jenny Lin (piano), and Conrad Harris (violin and live electronics).

SQUARE DANCING BECOMES AVANT GARDE AMID THE TREES

Melbourne, Australia (October 22, 2007) - By Hilary Crampton, The Age

If there is one thing predictable about Melbourne's weather, it is its unpredictability. Having drowned out the Melbourne Festival's opening night concert in Federation Square, it turned on midsummer temperatures for Merce Cunningham's Melbourne Event, which is perhaps appropriate. After all, a central principle of Cunningham's choreography has been to avoid predictability.

BY TWOS: FROM PRIVACY TO FUSION IN A CUNNINGHAM DUET
Hanover, NH (October 9, 2007) - By Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times
They have their exits and their entrances, and in between, the members of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company dance. Hence, surely, the name of Mr. Cunningham's latest marvel: "Xover" (pronounced "Crossover"), whose world premiere was the climax of a weeklong residency at Dartmouth College here.

ONE STAGE FOR EACH EYE, AND PLENTY FOR THE EARS TOO

Beacon, NY (October 1, 2007) - By Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times

Paul Valery wrote in "L'Ame et la Danse" (1921) that the essence of dance lay in metamorphosis, that what dance shows is the constant change of one physical image into another. His point works for all dance, but to no choreographer can it apply more fully than Merce Cunningham. Change is the continual condition of his dance theater, and not just of one image, shape or rhythm into another.

PAST PRESENT, SAVORING THE LEGACY AND LIFE OF MERCE

New York, NY (September 25, 2007) - By Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice                                                              Dancers and choreographers tend to be unconcerned with what came before them; they live in a sweaty present of creative ferment, occasionally glancing toward the future. They, along with Merce Cunningham's admirers, can gleam much from the company's new History Matters evenings - a mix of information, reminiscences, archival footage, and live performance.

AN ARTIST TURNED TOWARD COMPLEXITY

New York, NY (September 20, 2007) - By Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times

This year Merce Cunningham and colleagues have presented a retrospective series of evenings about his choreography called "History Matters" at his studio at Westbeth in Greenwich Village.

HUDSON VALLEY PROJECT
Beacon, NY (August 31, 2007) 2-year residency at Dia:Beacon; Inaugural Performance: Sun. Sept. 30 at 3 PM. Merce Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC) will inaugurate a two-year residency program at Dia:Beacon, Riggio Galleries entitled the Hudson Valley Project on Sunday, September 30 at 3 PM with the performance of Beacon Event in the Andy Warhol Shadows Gallery of Dia:Beacon, Riggio Galleries, the day after the MCDC 2007 Gala Celebration, also at Dia:Beacon.

FALL PREVIEW 2007
New York, NY (August 31, 2007) Merce Cunningham Dance Company's Fall preview press release.  Featuring the following: Experiments in the Studio: an MCDC new music series; 2007 Gala Celebration at Dia:Beacon; Hudson Valley Residency at Dia:Beacon; World Premiere of XOVER at Dartmouth, NH; Tour to Krannert Center and Columbia College, Chicago IL; Melbourne International Arts Festival, Melbourne, Australia; Festival d’Automne, Paris, France.

HISTORY MATTERS: A LIVING ARCHIVAL PRESENTATION
New York, NY (August 30, 2007) Merce in the 1970s; Tues. Sept. 18 at 7PM. The third in a series of evenings dedicated to exploring the history of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC) and examining the creative life of Merce Cunningham.  MCDC and distinguished artists will examine the creative life of Merce Cunningham during the 1970s. The evening features a discussion led by noted panelists including Merce Cunningham, David Vaughan, Robert Swinston, Valda Setterfield, and Meg Harper, accompanied by performance and video excerpts of seminal works from this decade: Signals (1970), Westbeth (1974), Changing Steps (1975), Blue Studio: Five Segments (1975), Torse (1976), Fractions (1977), and Locale (1979).

EXPERIMENTS IN THE STUDIO: AN MCDC NEW MUSIC SERIES
New York, NY (August 10, 2007) Opening night; Mon. Sept. 17 at 8:30PM.  Merce Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC) launches a new music series called “Experiments in the Studio” on Monday, September 17 at 8:30 p.m. The series will feature original music and improvisations by collaborators of Merce Cunningham and John Cage, including: David Behrman, John King, Stephan Moore, Christian Wolff, Takehisa Kosugi (Music Director of MCDC), Gordon Mumma, George Lewis, Fast Forward, Zeena Parkins, Richard Teitelbaum, Miguel Frasconi, and Marina Rosenfeld.

DESIGN MEETS DANCE AND RULES ARE BROKEN
New York, NY (June 17, 2007) - By Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times                                                          ''SUPPOSE your daughter is getting married, and her wedding dress won't be ready until the morning of the wedding, but it's by Dior,'' the composer Morton Feldman said to a friend in 1958. He was explaining how Merce Cunningham could be choreographing ''Summerspace'' in one part of the country while Robert Rauschenberg is was designing it in another and he, Feldman, was composing the music in a third.

INVENTION: MERCE CUNNINGHAM & COLLABORATORS
New York, NY (June 19, 2007) - The works and the methods of the great choreographer and dancer Merce Cunningham and the renowned artists with whom he has worked are the focus of Invention: Merce Cunningham & Collaborators, the exhibition opening Tuesday, June 19 at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Invention: Merce Cunningham & Collaborators is on view from June 19 through October 13, 2007 at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, 40 Lincoln Center Plaza. Admission is free. For exhibition information, telephone 212.870.1630 or visit the Library's website at www.nypl.org.

DANCE CRITICS ASSOCIATION HONORS DAVID VAUGHAN AS 2007 SENIOR CRITIC
New York, NY (June 17, 2007) The Dance Critics Association (DCA) is thrilled to announce that critic, scholar, biographer, Cunningham Foundation archivist, and performer David Vaughan will be honored at the DCA’s annual June conference as the organization’s 2007 Senior Critic. Choreographer Merce Cunningham is scheduled to introduce him. Mr. Vaughan will address the conference on June 17. The title of his speech —“Commence to Dancing” — is derived from a song in the Laurel and Hardy movie Way Out West. A longtime cabaret performer in a duo with the late Al Carmines, Mr. Vaughan may also sing a little in the course of his presentation. During the 2002 Lincoln Center Festival presentation of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Mr. Vaughan joined Mr. Cunningham as a reader in the company revival of How to Pass, Kick, Fall and Run (1965).

HISTORY MATTERS: A LIVING ARCHIVAL PRESENTATION
New York, NY (May 23, 2007) Merce Cunningham Dance Company announced today its third iteration of History Matters: A Living Archival Presentation. On June 7, 2007 at 7pm, The Merce Cunningham Dance Company and a panel of distinguished artists will examine the creative life of Merce Cunningham and the extraordinary experimental and varied period of the 1960s. The evening features a discussion led by noted panelists including Merce Cunningham, David Vaughan, Lewis Lloyd, and Robert Swinston, accompanied by performance and video excerpts of Merce Cunningham’s period seminal works: Story (1963), Cross Currents (1964), Variations V (1965), How To (1965), Place (1966), Scramble (1967), RainForest (1968), Walkaround Time (1968), and Canfield (1969).

MERCE CUNNINGHAM'S PLAYFUL EXPERIMENTS
Los Angeles, CA (May 19, 2007) - By Susan Josephs, Los Angeles Times
Back in the mid-'50s, when he faced both financial woes and the snobbery of the New York dance establishment, choreographer Merce Cunningham started taking his fledgling troupe on the road for "one-night stands" at any venue he could book. In a VW bus bought with borrowed money, "we used to travel great distances. After all, performing for one night was better than nothing," he says with a chuckle.

EXPLORING SPACE
Los Angeles, CA (May 20, 2007) - By Laura Bleiberg, The Orange County Register                                              Saturday night's Merce Cunningham dance concert at the Orange County Performing Arts Center was about as close to a 1960s "happening" as you never thought you'd witness behind the Orange curtain. The big difference between 1967 and 2007? Not hairstyles – it's technology. It was integral to Saturday's experience with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and some of us needed handholding to keep it all straight.

MERCE CUNNINGHAM, THE MIX MASTER
Los Angeles, CA (May 21, 2007) - By Chris Pasles, Los Angeles Times                                                                              For a few hours Saturday, the Orange County Performing Arts Center became one of the hippest places around. That's because the Merce Cunningham Dance Company took over the site, performing in three locations — the new Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, the Community Arts Plaza (on film) and the older Segerstrom Hall. The program was also a first for the 88-year-old Cunningham. Never before had his company, founded in 1953, performed in multiple sites in a single evening.

DEMOCRACY IN ACTION, THAT'S CUNNINGHAM
New York City, NY (April 10, 2007) - By Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times          

Merce Cunningham turned 88 on Monday. In recent years he has routinely been described as the world’s greatest choreographer. This doesn’t mean, though, that he is just the oldest choreographer who has been great in the past. The dances he has made this millennium suggest, amazingly, that no choreographer alive is more concerned with continuing to extend his range. The New York Times:  Highlighting Merce Cunningham's current and historic artistic achievements through the presentation of "History Matters."  The ongoing series is a showcase containing excerpts of pivotal works, highlighted by a distinguished panel. The most recent panelists include Merce Cunningham, Carolyn Brown, David Vaughan, David Behrman, and Robert Swinston.

WHEN THE CHOREOGRAPHER IS OUT OF THE PICTURE
New York City, NY (Janurary 7, 2007) - By Diane Solway, The New York Times

Like so much else in American dance, it all began with Martha Graham. When the mother of modern dance died in 1991 at the age of 96, she bequeathed control of her work to her friend Ronald Protas. But in a bitter and very public legal battle, the Martha Graham Center claimed that it, and not Ms. Graham, owned the rights to her dances and that they were not hers to give away. The New York Times: Pinnacle choreographers of our time and the question of what will happen to their choreography once they are gone. “What will become of Merce Cunningham’s work when he is gone? Or Paul Taylor’s? The Fight over Martha Graham’s"

LUKE JENNINGS ARTICLE IN GUARDIAN CRITICS
United Kingdom (Janurary 5, 2007) - By Luke Jennings, The Observer Critics Review 2006

Merce Cunningham’s Ocean, ranked number four in the top five. In the contemporary arena, Rambert mounted Merce Cunningham's Pond Way to great acclaim and Cunningham attended the enthralling performances of Ocean which opened the Dance Umbrella Festival. Phoenix Dance Company saw a change of leadership from Darshan Singh Bhuller to Javier de Frutos - no loss of theatricality there, it's safe to predict - and Rafael Bonachela left Rambert to start his own company, taking muse Amy Hollingsworth with him and mounting an ambitious programme on the South Bank.

LEGENDARY CHOREOGRAPHER MERCE CUNNINGHAM
SELECTS MIAMI ARTIST DANIEL ARSHAM FOR NEW COLLABORATION
North Miami, FL (May 10, 2006) Creative Collaboration between Merce Cunningham, Daniel Arsham, and Composer David Behrman to be Focus of Museum of Contemporary Art Exhibition and Performances at Miami Performing Arts Center, Spring 2007. Legendary avant-garde choreographer Merce Cunningham has selected Miami artist Daniel Arsham for his first-ever collaboration in Miami. The dance, visual art, and music collaboration by Merce Cunningham, Daniel Arsham and composer David Behrman, will have its world premiere at Miami Performing Arts Center as part of its Merce in Miami celebration during 2007, and will be the subject of a major two-part exhibition project organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art titled, Merce Cunningham: Dancing on the Cutting Edge, that will document Cunningham’s vital role in contemporary art.

MERCE CUNNINGHAM DANCE COMPANY CELEBRATES
50TH ANNIVERSARY DURING ANN ARBOR RESIDENCY
Ann Arbor, MI (January 30, 2004) Kronos Quartet to perform live with Merce Cunningham Dance Company on Saturday, March 13. The University Musical Society (UMS) presents the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in two performances featuring different repertory on Friday, March 12 at 8 pm and Saturday, March 13 at 8 pm in Ann Arbor’s Power Center for the Performing Arts (121 Fletcher Street). These performances mark the return of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company after its highly successful Ann Arbor residency in February 1999. In addition to the performances, the company will participate in numerous free educational activities while in Ann Arbor, many of which are open to the public.

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS ACQUIRES
MERCE CUNNINGHAM DANCE FOUNDATION COLLECTION
New York City, NY (June 6, 2000) The collection stands on its own as the history of one of this century's seminal artists and his company. At a press conference today, New York Public Library President Paul LeClerc announced the Library's acquisition of one of the most important collections in dance: the Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation Collection. A vast and varied mosaic of documents of Merce Cunningham and the Cunningham Dance Company, dating from the 1930s to today, this collection will reside in the Jerome Robbins Dance Division at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.