Chance encounters
by CHARLOTTE HIGGINS for the Guardian

He might be 87, but for choreographer Merce Cunningham dance is as vital as ever. The last work he created with his partner John Cage, who died in 1992, comes to London next week

published: September 16, 2006

Ocean, Roundhouse, London
by CLEMENT CRISP for the Financial Times
published: September 24, 2006

(There are resonances here with Ashton’s Scènes de ballet, that masterpiece which he made after a period of fascination with Euclidian geometry, in which he intended the dance to be effective for a spectator from front, back or side.)

Ocean
by JUDITH MACKRELL for the Guardian
published: September 25, 2006

True to its title, Merce Cunningham's Ocean fills every new space and changes with it. This protean masterpiece had its first UK showing in Belfast's airy Waterfront Hall, but in the handsomely refurbished Roundhouse, framed by industrial iron pillars, the work's choreography looks darker and fiercer.

Dance: Ocean, The Roundhouse
by ZOE ANDERSON for the Independent
published: September 25, 2006

Although Merce Cunningham's largest work is named Ocean, its theatre plan is like the concentric ripples of a stone dropped into a pool.

Ocean
by DEBRA CRAINE for the Times
published: September 25, 2006

Part of the thrill for the spectator is being inside the sound. Its inspiration is the ocean, with aural material derived from the sounds of sonar and sea mammals, yet much of the time I felt (not unpleasantly) as if I was sitting inside a giant belching volcano. How you feel about the utterances of the rambling and disjointed soundscape will to a large extent determine how you feel about Ocean.

Two blokes walk into a barre...
by JENNY GILBERT for the Independent
published: October 1, 2006

Anyone expecting seascape impressionism will have felt cheated. Worse, they will have wanted to leave after 10 minutes, but found their way barred by the fact that the exits were also the dancers' entrances. Ocean, we learn, is composed according to the number of hexagrams in the I Ching.