MCDC Enters Final Year of Tour with New Engagements and Expanded Rep

The Merce Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC) announced today details of the final year of its Legacy Tour, which will bring the company to more than 25 cities around the world and includes a series of four engagements in New York City, the Company's home since its founding in 1953. The Tour, which began in February 2010 and concludes on December 31, 2011, currently encompasses over 50 venues in North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

Highlights of the Tour's final year include engagements at the Grand Theatre in Hong Kong in January; the Israel Festival Jerusalem in June; the Company's first ever visit to Moscow as part of the International Chekhov Festival; performances in Cunningham's birthplace, Washington State, as part of a city-wide celebration of Cunningham in Seattle in October; and MCDC's final performances at Park Avenue Armory. A full schedule of Legacy Tour engagements and detailed descriptions of repertory are available by request and online at www.merce.org/legacy-tour/schedule.php.

"Since we launched the Legacy Tour in early 2010, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company has been traveling the world, sharing Merce's extraordinary artistic vision with longtime followers and new audiences," said Trevor Carlson, Executive Director of the Cunningham Dance Foundation. "The coming year offers us further opportunity to celebrate Merce, both around the world and with a series of very special engagements designed for New York City, the place he called home."

MCDC's New York City performances have been tailored to highlight diverse works from throughout the Company's nearly 60-year history and offer New York City audiences the opportunity to experience the full scope of the career of one of the most important artists of the last century. The four engagements include:
Six performances at The Joyce Theater, March 22 - 27, 2011, where the Company will perform the world premiere of the revival of Quartet (1982), a dance of unusual and dark beauty with music by David Tudor, considered to be one of Cunningham's great works; the New York City premiere of the revival of Antic Meet (1958), an iconic work that captures the collaborative spirit that existed between Cunningham and Rauschenberg-whose costumes, famously, featured a chair strapped to Cunningham's back-that has not been performed in New York City since 1969; and the popular, highly energetic CRWDSPCR (1993) for the full company, one of the first dances Cunningham choreographed using the computer program DanceForms.

A day of performances and retrospective celebrations as part of the Lincoln Center Festival on July 16, 2011. Filling the entire Jazz at Lincoln Center complex, this special event is designed to engage diverse audiences with the various components that make up a Cunningham work-including dance, music, sets, and costumes-illuminating the creative exchange between Merce and his collaborators. The day will include performances by MCDC and MCDC Repertory Understudy Group; concerts by MCDC musicians and collaborators; exhibitions of artwork, costumes and sets from the Merce Cunningham Archive; family workshops; and films, educational lectures and discussions with associates and Company members past and present. Squaregame (1976), the first commission for longtime collaborator and MCDC Music Director Takehisa Kosugi, and Duets (1980), a beautiful example of Cunningham's interest in the formal possibilities of movement, will be featured.

A series of performances at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music, December 7 - 10, 2011, featuring the New York premiere of the revival of Roaratorio (1983), a work created to accompany John Cage's monumental 1979 composition Roaratorio, an Irish Circus on Finnegans Wake, last performed at BAM in 1986; the New York City premiere of the revival of Rainforest (1968), with Andy Warhol's Silver Clouds as décor; BIPED (1999), a Cunningham masterpiece which incorporates motion-capture technology; Second Hand (1970), with costumes by Jasper Johns; Pond Way (1998), featuring décor by Roy Lichtenstein and music by Brian Eno; and Split Sides (2003), a work with music by Radiohead and Sigur Rós, representing Cunningham's most radical and thrilling use of chance procedures. The BAM performances mark the last time these dances will be performed by MCDC in the U.S.

The Company's final performances will be a series of Events, made specifically for Park Avenue Armory in New York City, on December 29 - 31, 2011. These performances will feature the last-ever music commission by the MCDC Music Committee, led by Music Director Takehisa Kosugi. The new music by Kosugi, David Behrman, John King, and Christian Wolff will reflect an intimate knowledge of Cunningham's creative process and the radical innovations he and John Cage pioneered. As Cunningham requested, all tickets to the final New York performance will be priced at $10.

About the Legacy Tour
Celebrating Cunningham's lifetime of artistic achievement, the Legacy Tour showcases seminal works from throughout Cunningham's career, and offers audiences around the world a final opportunity to see Cunningham's choreography performed by the company he personally trained. Currently encompassing more than 50 engagements, the Legacy Tour brings MCDC to new destinations around the world and includes performances at venues throughout Europe and the United States that have been pivotal in showcasing the Company for the past 50 years.

A total of 18 works are being presented during the Legacy Tour, featuring seven newly revived pieces, many of which have not been performed for decades. The tour repertory highlights the artistic collaborations that characterized Cunningham's creative life, including his work with visual artists Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Mark Lancaster, and Andy Warhol, and musicians John Cage-Cunningham's long-time collaborator and life partner-David Tudor, Takehisa Kosugi, Gavin Bryar, Brian Eno, Radiohead, and Sigur Rós, among others.

The MCDC core ensemble will perform throughout the tour under the leadership of Director of Choreography Robert Swinston, who joined the company in 1980 and served as Assistant to the Choreographer since 1992.

A full schedule of Legacy Tour engagements and detailed descriptions of repertory are available by request and online at www.merce.or/legacy-tour/schedule.php.

About the Cunningham Dance Foundation and the Legacy Plan
The Cunningham Dance Foundation is dedicated to sustaining and advancing the creative work of Merce Cunningham (1919-2009)-choreographer, teacher and artist-through support of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and Repertory Understudy Group; the Merce Cunningham Studio, which provides training in Cunningham Technique^TM and oversees the Studio Performance Program for Young Artists and Educational Outreach; and the Merce Cunningham Archives. In 2009, the Foundation launched Mondays with Merce a pioneering web series that provides the public with behind-the-scenes access to Cunningham's creative process.

The Cunningham Dance Foundation's precedent-setting Legacy Plan delineates the future of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and ensures the preservation of Merce Cunningham's artistic legacy. The multifaceted plan includes the celebratory two-year Legacy Tour, and supports career transition for the dancers, musicians, and staff who have invested their time and creative efforts into the realization of Cunningham's vision. The Plan also provides for the creation of digital "Dance Capsules" that will bring Cunningham's work to life for future generations. The Legacy Plan is supported by an ongoing $8-million capital campaign.

Lead support for the Cunningham Dance Foundation's Legacy Plan, including the tour, has been provided by Leading for the Future Initiative, a program of the Nonprofit Finance Fund, funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation; The Andrew W Mellon Foundation; and an anonymous donor.

Major support has been provided by American Express; Bloomberg; Jill F. & Sheldon M. Bonovitz; Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP; Sage & John Cowles; Anthony & Mary Creamer; Molly Davies; The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation; Jeanne Donovan Fisher; Judith R. & Alan H. Fishman; The Marshall Franklin Foundation; Fund for the City of New York - Open Society Foundation; Agnes Gund; the Hayes Fund of HRK Foundation; Pamela & Richard Kramlich; Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation; The New York Community Trust - Wallace Special Projects Fund; The Prospect Hill Foundation; Liz Gerring Radke and Kirk Radke; The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation; Robert Sterling Clark Foundation; Mark Rudkin; The Fan Fox & Leslie R Samuels Foundation; SHS Foundation; The Shubert Foundation; Allan G. & Ferne Sperling; Sutton & Christian Stracke; Miralles Tagliabue EMBT; Friends of MCDC.

Public funds provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, US Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

The Cunningham Dance Foundation extends special thanks to its Board of Directors for their generous support.

Additional information is available at www.merce.org.