The avant garde choreographer Merce Cunningham has died at the age of 90. He was for dance what John Cage, his collaborator was for music; that is, he eliminated virtually every traditional element of the art form. Cunningham had his dancers move with no reference to the music that was playing. He determined sequences by flipping a coin in an effort to make his art random and to eliminate any personality or expressiveness. He was praised for having his dancers move in a way that was “unnatural,” something that could be said of much of the modernist movement.
Now that he is dead, his dance troupe is disbanding. No one is performing his works anymore or will be likely to in the future. An article in the Washington Post on Cunningham’s death laments this. From Merce Cunningham’s Modern Dance Steps in Jeopardy With His Passing:
“Why do we have to throw away the old stuff? No other art form does it,” says Janet Eilber, artistic director of the Martha Graham Dance Company. “If Merce’s works are truly relegated to historic reproductions at the university level, and are not danced with the full-on professional power of people who have been trained in that genre, they won’t really exist in their full artistic power. And I think that’s depressing.”
The reality is that Cunningham’s death and the eventual self-destruction of his company may be as good as consigning his works to the dustbin. Fans might as well envision black edges all around Cunningham’s works now — the glorious creation myth that is “Sounddance,” with its fierce, cyclonic score; “XOVER,” a final collaboration with painter Rauschenberg, and a meditation on eternity. Cunningham loved the randomness of life that he represented in his work with the toss of a coin. But in a field ill-suited to keeping its history alive, too much is now being left up to chance.
Do you see the excruciating irony here? It was “contemporary” artists like Cunningham used to be who dismantled the artistic traditions, who literally and self-consciously threw away the old stuff. Artists who rejected universality should not be surprised to find that their works are not universally interesting. Artists who embrace randomness, who reject canons of beauty, who eschew creativity, and who invest everything in being of the current moment cannot expect their works to last.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In