Yale Dance Theater 2012: The Legacy of Merce Cunningham

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Yale Dance Theater (YDT) proudly announces its spring 2012 project on The Legacy of Merce Cunningham.Over the course of the spring semester, rehearsal directors spanning three generations of Merce Cunningham Dance Company alumni will work with YDT members on the reconstruction of Cunningham dances. Directors Jennifer Goggans, Meg Harper, Patricia Lent, and Neil Greenberg will stage a fifteen-minute excerpt of ROARATORIO, a dance that premiered in Lille, France in 1983, with music by John Cage. Additionally, they will create a minEvent, an assembly of choreographic excerpts from the 1970s, 80s, 90s, and 00s.Through these reconstructions, YDT will investigate the layers of generational knowledge that constitute the Cunningham legacy. Our research focuses on how the shifting interests and methods of a choreographer over time impact dance preservation. What are the differences and overlaps in Cunningham’s approach to choreography over a forty-year span? How did his work with dancers in the studio change over time? How might a “multi-vocal” approach that synthesizes generational knowledge posit a new model for dance reconstruction?Merce Cunningham (1919-2009) was a leader of the American avant-garde throughout his seventy-year career and is considered one of the most important choreographers of our time. The YDT project comes on the heels of the final performances of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, which folded on December 31, 2011 at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City, with the plan for Cunningham’s work to live on exclusively through licensing activities.YDT’s Cunningham project will culminate in final performances in April 2012. The project marks YDT’s first collaboration with the Yale School of Music: YSM musicians will create an original composition to accompany the minEvent.Photo Credit: Members of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company performing Sounddance. (Photo by Sveeva Vigevno/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images.)