PS, I Love Merce

Same day, different post. I'd simply like to express my thoughts and feelings on the passing of Merce Cunningham. His name was a part of my academic and, if less directly, physical education for four years, and I had my first opportunity to watch his company perform just months before graduation. Have you ever opened the window to feel the cross-breeze it makes with the door? (This city has instilled me with a new apprecation of such things.) The theory of his influence made its live manifestation all the more effective.

The man lived to be ninety years old. His death had none of the shock of AIDS- or other (and recent) tragedy-related passings. It is the record of his life that creates the impact. A person can make a life out of dance in a world that pushes it to the furthest margin of the arts, sure. I commend that in anyone. But that Cunningham could do as much and use his major works to usher in a new perception of art itself--its formation, its collaborations--speaks volumes of his ingenuity and his commitment.

I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said. He was as well-known as any modern choreographer has become. Worse, I can't put words to the vice-grip I feel when I watch mere seconds of Biped. Suffice it to say that in a shitty economy I have settled for a job that keeps me busy and far, far from the arts for most of every day, and I feel a great deal of shame and frustration.

I'm grateful, at the very least, to have such a profound guide in a man who now belong entirely to history.


LADB