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Merce, the great adventurer of modern dance, dies aged 90
Louise Jury, Chief Arts Correspondent28 Jul 2009
Merce Cunningham, the avant-garde dancer and choreographer who revolutionised modern dance, has died at the age of 90.
Cunningham died on Sunday at his Manhattan home of natural causes, said Leah Sandals of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. She did not reveal the cause of death.
In a career that spanned more than 60 years and some 150 works, Cunningham tore up the rules of dance. He would determine steps by tossing dice or coins and overturned unwritten rules such as having dancers face the audience.
Tributes were paid from the world of dance to a man described as "one of America's most serious artists".
Trevor Carlson, executive director of the Cunningham Dance Foundation, said: "Merce saw beauty in the ordinary, which is what made him extraordinary. He did not allow convention to lead him, but was a true artist, honest and forthcoming in everything he did."
"I'd rather find out something than repeat what I know," he once said. "I prefer adventure to something that's fixed."
Although he used a wheelchair in later years, he remained an active artist. When he turned 90 in April, he premiered a piece called Nearly Ninety set to music from Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones, rock band Sonic Youth and Japanese composer Takehisa Kosugi.
He also set up the Merce Cunningham Trust, to maintain his legacy. He decided his dance company would have a final, two-year tour and then be closed. Its assets would be transferred to the trust, which would hold licensing rights and preserve Cunningham's choreography in digital form for future artists, students, scholars and audiences.
The New York Times wrote in 1982: "As playful as he has often seemed, Cunningham has always been one of America's most serious artists ... one of the few true revolutionaries in the history of dance."
