Remembering Merce Cunningham

“Before Merce, American modern dance was dominated by the intense and inward creativity of Martha Graham. Her dances were morally serious and psychologically powerful; she was interested in narrative and mythology, and in unearthing the inner depths of human consciousness in movement. His dances were cerebral and abstract, rigorously formal designs with no story and no ‘meaning’ other than the dance itself. The movement was never confessional or impassioned but appeared instead organic and detached, an act of nature.”

How Cary Grant Created ‘Cary Grant’

“The character he created and then lived in for decades, a seemingly effortless production that was actually the result of years of practice and refinement and discipline, was an ideal of the ascendant American male (as observed by a young immigrant Cockney vaudevillian): urbane but athletic, absurdly handsome but self-effacing, a joker who could be a bit of a cad, even a little cruel, but would always do the right thing in the end.”