Merce Cunningham

This volume, published in conjunction with the Walker Art Center and MCA Chicago exhibition ‘Merce Cunningham: Common Time’ (8 February – 10 September 2017), reconsiders the choreographer and his collaborators as an extraordinarily generative interdisciplinary network that preceded and predicted dramatic shifts in performance praxis, including the development of site-specific dance, the use of technology as a choreographic tool, and the radical separation of sound and movement in dance. It features ten new essays by curators and historians of music, art history, performance studies and dance as well as interviews with contemporary choreographers – Beth Gill, Maria Hassabi, Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener – who address Cunningham’s continued influence. These are supplemented by numerous rarely published archival photographs, reprints of texts by Cunningham, Cage and other key dancers, artists and scholars, several detailed appendices, and an extensive illustrated chronology placing Cunningham’s activities and those of his collaborators in the context of the 20th century, particularly the expanded arts scene of the 1960s and 1970s. This book is an essential volume for anyone interested in contemporary art, music, and dance.