Dancers & the Dance

Essential for the devotee, it is well worth reading by the curious and might even prove a means of conversion for the unbeliever.?Financial Times "Cunningham has the dignity and presence of a special creature?the effect is devastating."?New York Review of Books The name Merce Cunningham is synonymous with the best in modern dance: invention, energy and the breaking of barriers. From his debut in the Martha Graham Dance Troupe in the thirties, through to the founding his own company, Cunningham has worked towards establishing the purity of dance and its relationship with movement, colour, light and sound. The Dancer and the Dance presents a strong portrait of Merce Cunningham, a man of great vitality and genious, with a sound theoretical grasp of the expansion of modern dance into the 20th century. Here, in discussion with Jacqueline Lesschaeve, Cunningham discusses individual compositions as well as revealing a great deal about his collaborations with modern masters such as John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, David Tudor, Jasper Johns and Morris Graves. Cunningham talks and explains with the same fluidity and expansiveness that is notable when he dances.