The achievements and contributions of Merce Cunningham

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The achievements and contributions of Merce Cunningham

This essay focusses on Merce Cunningham, who is a choreographer that produces works that can be described as both modern and postmodern, as

‘conventional thinking tends to place Cunningham somewhere in between these two genres – too cool and objective for modern dance, too virtuosic and technically accomplished for Judson-era postmodernism’

(Copeland, 2004:230).  

The sources of most use for this essay include Bremser’s Fifty Contemporary Choreographers; Carter’s Routledge Dance Studies Reader; Copeland’s Merce Cunningham and the Modernizing of Modern Dance and What is dance?; Cunningham’s interview with Lesschaeve in The Dancer and The Dance; Morgenroth’s Speaking of Dance; Morris’ Moving Words, Re-Writing Dance and Vaughan’s issue of Choreography and Dance, entitled Merce Cunningham: Creative Elements.

The sources used to compile this essay compromise largely of secondary sources, which Cunningham has not written or contributed to, however, are written by authors knowledgeable in the field of dance.  In addition, some primary sources have been used in reference for this essay, where Cunningham has had direct input, for example in The Dancer and the Dance, which is a documented interview.  Through this research, it appears that secondary sources are more accessible than primary sources on this choreographer, giving diverse accounts, but all appearing to be consistent with the information given.

To achieve the aim of exploring Cunningham’s achievements and contributions in relation to dance, this essay will discuss three main contributions and two main achievements.  The contributions looked at are that of Cunningham being a choreographer, a teacher and an advocate for dance and the achievements explored are that of his discoveries within dance (chance methods and computer composition) and his gaining of acceptance.  A personal account shall also be included to discuss the impact Cunningham has created.

To now evaluate the authenticity of the aforementioned sources, they have all been found to be of a reliable nature, with consistent information.  All of the sources were found in Middlesex University Learning Resource Centre in Trent Park and through research, it has been found that there is a vast amount of information available on Cunningham.  Every source used, except Bremser’s Fifty Contemporary Choreographers, had a contents page and index, allowing ease of accessing information inside.  To go into detail here, although Bremser’s source does not have an index, the book is in alphabetical order and so was easy to navigate through.

The sources used were published with varying dates of publication, ranging from Copeland’s What is Dance in 1983 to Morgenroth’s Speaking of Dance and Copeland’s Merce Cunningham and the Modernizing of Modern Dance in 2004.  Furthermore, Harris’ Merce Cunningham, Fifty Years, was a valuable source because it has a recent date of publication (1997), allowing the information inside to be quite up-to-date and has brought together an account of Cunningham over fifty years, as the title suggests.  By looking at sources with varying dates of publication, it has shown how Cunningham’s career and choreography has developed, but particularly with the older sources, it gave information about the impression Cunningham made at the time, something which is appreciated more at a later date.  

To summarise, the sources used for this essay were appropriate for this task, with many giving suggested further reading and detailed bibliographies to enable the user to research more and see that extensive research had be done to create the source.

Cunningham has contributed, and continues to contribute fresh, new ideas to help shape the world of dance.  This he does through his teaching, choreographing (with the use of chance methods and computer composition) and promoting of dance.  Through doing this, he has achieved recognition and acceptance.

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To now analyse each element of Cunningham’s previously listed contributions and achievements, Cunningham has firstly contributed to dance his teaching, and through that, his knowledge of dance.  He was ‘born in Centralia, Washington, 1919’ (McDonagh in Kostelanetz, 1992:1) and began teaching back in the 1950s as he tells here:

‘I didn’t have any money and I certainly couldn’t pay anybody since I was barely surviving myself, so I tried to think of what I could give the dancers in return for their labours [sic].  I thought, well, maybe teaching class’

(Cunningham in Morgenroth, 2004:14).  

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