Merce Cunningham Dance Co Performs 1st of Final Engagements in NYC

Now in the final year of its Legacy Tour, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC) returns to New York City for a weeklong engagement at The Joyce Theater from March 22 through 27, 2011, with a newly added Saturday matinee on March 26. The Company will perform three works tracing the arc of its nearly 60-year history, including the world premiere of the revival of Quartet (1982), the New York City premiere of the revival of Antic Meet (1958), and the highly energetic CRWDSPCR (1993). These performances mark MCDC's last engagement at The Joyce Theater, which has been an important venue for the Company in New York City. Trevor Carlson, Executive Director of the Cunningham Dance Foundation, will lead a "Dance Talk" on Legacy planning at Joyce SoHo from 6 to 8pm on March 14, 2011, and members of MCDC will participate in a "Dance Chat" following the March 23 performance. Tickets are available online at joyce.org or through JoyceCharge at 212-242-0800.

To coincide with the Joyce engagement, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation will mount a window installation celebrating the artist's collaborations with Cunningham in its newly converted warehouse space at 455 West 19th Street. Rauschenberg, who referred to MCDC as "his largest canvas," served as the Company's resident designer from 1954 through 1964 and continued to work with Cunningham regularly until 2007, when they premiered their final collaboration, XOVER. The installation, which will be visible to pedestrians, will feature Rauschenberg's original costumes for Antic Meet against a backdrop of a 1964 film of the work being performed by its original cast. To represent the third of the three "original" collaborators, the John Cage Trust will also contribute a sound installation of Cage's Essay (1987), comprised of a series of 18 mesostics (a postmodern poetic form Cage devised) built on Erik Satie's title Messe des Pauvres and celebrating Henry David Thoreau's classic essay On the Duty of Civil Disobedience. Cunningham's work with Cage, his life partner from the 1940s until Cage's death in 1992, had the greatest influence on his artistic practice.

"It has been an honor to celebrate Merce Cunningham's creative genius in cities around the world during the Legacy Tour, but it is especially rewarding to perform for audiences in the city he called home," said Trevor Carlson, Executive Director of the Cunningham Dance Foundation. "We are also delighted to be partnering with the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and the John Cage Trust at Bard College to create an exhibition offering insight into the dynamic collaborative spirit that existed among Cage, Cunningham, and Rauschenberg."

"The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation is pleased to continue this long-standing collaboration with MCDC - connecting the historic costumes and film of Antic Meet to the live performance at the Joyce. Both Cunningham and Rauschenberg's legacies are defined by a unique sense of testing the boundaries of innovation in such a way that the result from 1958 remains contemporary today," said Christy MacLear, Executive Director of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.
MCDC's first Joyce season, in 1984, featured a ten-day series of Cunningham's signature Events, in which Cunningham and his dancers performed choreographic collages to live music by John Cage, Takehisa Kosugi, and David Tudor. For its final Joyce engagement, the Company will perform three landmark dances from throughout its history:

New York premiere of the revival of Antic Meet (1958), an early work last performed in New York in 1969. This comedic dance captures the exuberant and collaborative spirit that existed among Cunningham, Cage, and Rauschenberg for nearly seventy years. Structured like a series of vaudeville scenes, Rauschenberg's witty costumes include a fur coat, parachute dresses, and, famously, a chair strapped to Cunningham's back. Performed alongside Cage's Concert for Piano and Orchestra, Antic Meet is one of the most iconic works by the three original collaborators.

The revival and preservation of Antic Meet are made possible through the generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts and Jeanne Donovan Fisher, and co-commissioned by the University of Notre Dame's DeBartolo Performing Arts Center and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

World premiere of the revival of Quartet (1982), a dance for five, featuring David Tudor's score Sextet for Seven. A dark and somber work, the title was prompted by two ways in which the fifth dancer is excluded-the first being that two of the dancers act as one and do the same movements at the same time, and the second being that the role Cunningham created for himself is different and "outside" the others. Tudor's chilling electronic score is for "six homogeneous voices and one wandering voice." Mark Lancaster designed the costumes in hues of crimson, blue, and green. Quartet was last performed in 1991 at Theater II in Zurich, Switzerland.

The revival of Quartet is co-commissioned by Théâtre de la Ville, Paris.

CRWDSPCR (1993), one of the first dances Cunningham choreographed using the computer program LifeForms (now called DanceForms) and an example of his lifelong interest in exploring film and technology. A dance for the full company, the nonstop frenetic energy of the piece is interrupted only once by a long, slow solo. Cunningham created the work for the American Dance Festival, one of the smaller stages MCDC performed on since becoming a 12-member company (it is now a 15-member company). At the time he observed, "computer technology is changing our language, condensing words," and the dance's title, alternately pronounced "Crowd Spacer" or "Crowds Pacer," refers to these phenomena. John King's score, blues 99, utilizes electronic transformations of the sounds of a Dobro slide steel guitar, and Mark Lancaster's multicolored costumes divide the dancers' bodies into fourteen sections, echoing the LifeForms computer program.

The revival of CRWDSPCR was made possible with public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Following its performances at The Joyce Theater, the Company's remaining New York City engagements are:

Lincoln Center Festival, July 16, 2011: A day of performances and retrospective celebrations featuring 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, presented alongside concerts, films, exhibitions, and workshops.

Brooklyn Academy Of Music, December 7 - 10, 2011: A series of performances featuring the New York City premieres of the revivals of Roaratorio (1983) and RainForest (1968), as well as BIPED (1999), Second Hand (1970), Pond Way (1998), and Split Sides (2003), in a program designed to showcase some of Cunningham's most significant explorations of technology in dance.

Park Avenue Armory, December 29 - 31, 2011: The Company's final performances, a series of site-specific Events made specifically for the Armory, featuring the last-ever commission for the MCDC Music Committee.

Performance and Ticket Information

Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - 7:30pm
Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - 7:30pm
Thursday, March 24, 2011 - 8pm
Friday, March 25, 2011 - 8pm
Saturday, March 26, 2011 - 2pm (NEWLY ADDED PERFORMANCE)
Saturday, March 26, 2011 - 8pm
Sunday, March 27, 2011 - 2pm

Tickets are available starting at $10 online at joyce.org or through JoyceCharge at 212-242-0800. The Joyce Theater is located at 175 Eighth Avenue at 19th Street.

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 Bryars, Brian Eno, Radiohead, and Sigur Rós, among others.

MCDC 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.org/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.