Merce Cunningham Dance Company 2004-2005

kurinuku · **Posted:** Sun Sep 12, 2004 10:50 pm

Quote:

Total mastery in 'Split Sides'

The Washington Post

True to its title, the work is split in two right down the middle. The movements are in two 20-minute segments. There are two sets of lighting designs and two sets of costumes, one colorfully splashed with yellows and corals, the other covered in gray, black and white scrolls.

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kurinuku · **Posted:** Sun Oct 24, 2004 5:07 am

Quote:

Prime Mover

By ELIZABETH SCHWYZER
The Sunday Herald
October 24, 2004

Now, as the New York-based Merce Cunningham Dance Company embarks on their first UK tour, its founder has taken the concept of events to a new extreme. At each destination, the company will present an event designed for that evening, incorporating old work as well as one element only from the as yet unseen new work, currently titled Views On Stage.

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kurinuku · **Posted:** Sun Oct 24, 2004 5:17 am

Quote:

One more roll of the dice

By JACKIE MCGLONE
Scotland on Sunday
October 24, 2004

Typically, Cunningham is doing something unique with this intriguing work - at each venue on the tour an element of the design has been revealed in a series of ‘events’. In Edinburgh audiences will finally see how he melds dance, design, lighting and music, with the set by Brazilian installation artist Ernest Neto and costumes by James Hall.

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kurinuku · **Posted:** Wed Dec 22, 2004 2:17 am

Quote:

A Program That Offers Unintended Implications

by JACK ANDERSON
the New York Times

However, in the "Event" on Thursday night, the separate parts fused into a vision of urban life, with collaboratively devised solemn electronic music by John King and Marina Rosenfeld and designs by Maya Ciarrocchi, a video artist.

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Azlan · **Posted:** Sat Feb 26, 2005 7:00 am

Quote:

MERCE'S WORLD

Andrew Gilbert, SF Chronicle

Merce Cunningham's dauntingly beautiful ballets beg for explication, but don't look to the choreographer for answers. <a href=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/02/27/PKG1CBEF311.DTL target=_blank>more</a>

Azlan · **Posted:** Sat Feb 26, 2005 7:04 am

Quote:

`Music and Dance by Chance'

San Jose Mercury News

This kicks off Stanford's Encounter:Merce... <a href=http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/living/10998670.htm target=_blank>more</a>

Azlan · **Posted:** Sun Mar 06, 2005 4:46 pm

More on Stanford's multi-disciplinary Merce Encounter program:

Quote:

Many events scheduled for Encounter:Merce

By Mark Whittington
San Jose Mercury News

It seems only natural that Merce Cunningham -- a choreographer who has thrived for more than half a century collaborating with experimental musicians, artists and scientists -- would be the focus of Stanford's largest interdisciplinary arts project. <a href=http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/11067665.htm target=_blank>more</a>

Quote:

Encounters with grace

By Mark Whittington
San Jose Mercury News

Merce Cunningham laughs when he hears that Stanford researchers are analyzing his dances to find ``the essence of grace.'' <a href=http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/11067663.htm target=_blank>more</a>

Quote:

Why Merce?

San Jose Mercury News

Participants in Encounter:Merce attempted to answer that question, often in much more detail than what is included here. <a href=http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/11067662.htm target=_blank>more</a>

<small>[ 06 March 2005, 05:47 PM: Message edited by: Azlan ]</small>

Francis Timlin · **Posted:** Fri Mar 11, 2005 8:49 am

R. M. Campbell writes about the Cunningham residency at Stanford in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/classical/215417_merce11.html

kurinuku · **Posted:** Mon Mar 14, 2005 2:05 am

Quote:

Old master, young spirit in dance

by ANITA AMIRREZVANI
the San Jose Mercury News

It's no wonder that 16 departments and centers at Stanford University have chosen to focus on Cunningham's work and ideas this year. The university's Encounter: Merce project culminated last week with a residency and performance by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company at the Memorial Auditorium.

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LMCtech · **Posted:** Tue Mar 15, 2005 11:30 am

From the SF Chronicle.

Quote:

REVIEW
Merce Cunningham Dance Company hits Stanford, and random acts of startling beauty bust out all over
Rachel Howard, Special to The Chronicle

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

"We are here to throw the die to determine the order of dances for 'Split Sides,' " the man behind the podium said, voice wavering yet stately, like a butler announcing dinner. With his white curls and impish smile, there was no mistaking him: Merce Cunningham, stooped at 85 years old, eyes gleaming with a child's mischief at the opportunity to reveal his methods.

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Andre Yew · **Posted:** Thu Jun 02, 2005 10:58 am

A preview of the Los Angeles performance of Merce Cunningham's Split Sides:

Quote:

Living in the now, always
Victoria Looseleaf, LA Times

Think dice and you might think craps, backgammon, even Monopoly — but modern dance? Think again, because choreographer Merce Cunningham is making use of dice-rolling in his piece "Split Sides."

Set to original music composed by art-rock bands Radiohead and Sigur Rós, the work, which premiered in New York in 2003 and is performed tonight through Sunday at the Ahmanson Theatre by Merce Cunningham Dance Company, is dependent on chance operations.
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Andre Yew · **Posted:** Sun Jun 05, 2005 8:58 pm

A very positive review from Lewis Segal for the first program consisting of Split Sides and Views on Stage:

Quote:

A win-win combination
Lewis Segal, LA Times

For more than half a century, choreographer Merce Cunningham has let chance determine the sequencing and collaborative relationships in his pieces — a way, he has said, of discovering creative possibilities he might not have imagined.
...
Well, maybe along the way, you do manage to make one definitive observation about Merce Cunningham and his company: Sustained high achievement like this is never, ever a matter of chance.
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Andre Yew · **Posted:** Sun Jun 05, 2005 9:09 pm

I attended the Saturday night show which consisted of Split Sides and Fabrications. Wow! After I stopped trying to figure out what the pieces were about (in the middle of the first silent period of Fabrications) and just enjoyed the movement, formations, colors, and other elements of the show, the dancing really came to life for me. If art is about revealing beauty, then Cunningham's works are high art, as they somehow reveal the secret pockets of beauty held in empty space. This is effortlessly enjoyable abstraction, unlike for example Forsythe's overtly brainy works. His work is brought to life by an amazing group of strong, unified dancers who somehow manage to hold tough balances in positions that would be revealed as awkward if they weren't bathed in the incandescent beauty of the choreography. Partnering was superb, and sublime --- as with all their technique, it's all in the service of the work. Simply amazing: how does he still think of this stuff, and how does he teach his dancers his work?

--Andre

Andre Yew · **Posted:** Mon Jun 06, 2005 10:44 am

A positive review of Views on Stage, and Split Sides. Note that the music was played live, unlike what's written in the article.

Quote:

Engaging in onstage gamesmanship
Laura Bleiberg, Orange County Register

Master choreographer Merce Cunningham had promised the dice would roll, and, by golly, he kept his word. The Ahmanson Theatre audience was delighted.

This little bit of legal gaming - no bets exchanged - has been integral to Cunningham's choreographic process for decades. It's normally conducted backstage. Thursday night it was brought center stage, and became one with the Merce Cunningham Dance show.
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Andre Yew · **Posted:** Mon Jun 06, 2005 10:50 am

A very positive review of the second Cunningham program on Saturday night with Fabrication and Split Sides:

Quote:

Cunningham's program of cool spatial effects
Lewis Segal, LA Times

In the early 1990s, Merce Cunningham began to use computer software as a preliminary stage in the choreographic process, eventually transferring or adapting for his dancers the moves he originated with animated figures.

This new way of working created a major shift in his technique — one made especially clear at the Ahmanson Theatre on Saturday, when the Cunningham company performed a piece from 1987 on the same two-part program as one from 2003.
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Merce Cunningham Dance Company 2004-2005

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