Category: dance

“The dancing of Cunningham’s work by other troupes isn’t a new phenomenon. Ballet and other dance companies have been selectively performing Cunningham over the years. … But now, with Cunningham’s own troupe gone, his creations will rest in the hands of outsiders.”

Wendy Perron on two generations of post-Cunningham choreographers: “[That] is the other legacy. Cunningham’s effect goes beyond the Legacy Tour and beyond the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. There’s a piece of Merce in all of us.”

“There were reasons to consider closing down the Merce Cunningham Dance Company following his death, to be sure: it faced a devastating economic crisis following the 2008 recession, and without the constant production of new works once Merce was gone it would have been increasingly difficult to fill a theater or get bookings. But mostly, the man who always loved challenges and difficulties was too old and frail to take charge of this new crisis himself.”

“In a decade at the helm of Scottish Ballet, Page is credited to transforming it from a company on the verge of becoming an artistic laughing-stock to a top-ranking troupe with unswerving performance standards. … [Yet the] company has been in an odd kind of limbo since Page’s departure was announced more than a year ago, in an episode that still hasn’t been quite explained.”

Clement Crisp: “London is clogged, blighted, with stagings of The Nutcracker. It is a state of affairs which would seem ludicrous were it not so artistically stultifying … So, what can be done – what must be done – to cure this endemic, epidemic Nutcracking? The obvious response is a change of repertory.” (Lotsa luck, Clement.)

“Daniel Arsham was barely aware of Merce Cunningham in 2005, when he got a call telling him that he was being considered as the set designer for the next work by Cunningham’s dance company. Mr. Arsham was 25 and just two years out of art school at the Cooper Union.”

Birmingham Royal Ballet is bringing its staging of the holiday classic from its own stage to London’s O2 arena – and it’s every bit as complicated an operation as you’d think.

“Problematic to appreciate, taxing to execute, Cunningham choreography did not grow more palatable as younger choreographers absorbed several of his innovations and as his dance technique became taught around the world.”

“The body is a fiction on the regular screen. In 3-D, the body has volume. The body is an instrument to discover and conquer space. The body has such a different presence in 3-D. Everybody thinks that depth is the great thing about 3-D. But in my book, volume is the great thing.”