Alive (for Merce Cunningham)
The
death of Merce Cunningham at age 90 (after presenting his most
recent—and now final—work in April at the Brooklyn Academy of Music)
preempts the regularly scheduled content on this page. But no worries!
Tomorrow will bring what today promised.
Merce Cunningham was the greatest of the American poets of dance. His star rose at a crucial time and the constellation of Merce, Martha Graham, and George Balanchine made New York the dance center of the world. The leonine Merce was avant-garde, revolutionary, and curious, of course, but he was also, perhaps most importantly, an extraordinary teacher. His work was often aesthetically uncomfortable (separating music from dance in a cognitive way and presenting both forms together without narrative or symbolic relation, using the music of Radiohead [?!?!] in his choreography), but always energized, and dance will carry his influence well into the ages. Tonight the angels are learning to dance all over again in Heaven.
Alive (for Merce Cunningham)
By Annmarie Lockhart
deconstruct
strip it down
break it apart
and see what the pieces each do
when you throw them back together again/
leave them to chance
not random
not improv
not narrative
not symbol/
every element all its own/
alive/
and he
was alive
and we
were alive
and dance
came alive
Merce Cunningham was the greatest of the American poets of dance. His star rose at a crucial time and the constellation of Merce, Martha Graham, and George Balanchine made New York the dance center of the world. The leonine Merce was avant-garde, revolutionary, and curious, of course, but he was also, perhaps most importantly, an extraordinary teacher. His work was often aesthetically uncomfortable (separating music from dance in a cognitive way and presenting both forms together without narrative or symbolic relation, using the music of Radiohead [?!?!] in his choreography), but always energized, and dance will carry his influence well into the ages. Tonight the angels are learning to dance all over again in Heaven.
Alive (for Merce Cunningham)
By Annmarie Lockhart
deconstruct
strip it down
break it apart
and see what the pieces each do
when you throw them back together again/
leave them to chance
not random
not improv
not narrative
not symbol/
every element all its own/
alive/
and he
was alive
and we
were alive
and dance
came alive
Posted by Annmarie at 7/29/2009 11:48 PM 
Categories: today's words, vox poetica originals, dedication
Tags: dance Annmarie Lockhart Merce Cunningham free verse
Categories: today's words, vox poetica originals, dedication
Tags: dance Annmarie Lockhart Merce Cunningham free verse
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