A post by Shipp.

Mercier (Merce) Philip Cunningham died at his home in Manhattan on sunday, at the age of 90. Merce lived on the cutting edge of dance all through his life, dancing in every performance with his Merce Cunningham Dance Company until the age of 70, and In 2009, MCDC premiered his newest work, Nearly Ninety, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He also earned some of the highest honors bestowed in the arts, including the National Medal of Arts and the MacArthur Fellowship.

Cunningham collaborated mainly with John Cage (first row, right), Cunningham’s life partner and Musical Director for his Dance Company from the 1940s until Cage’s death in 1992. Cage had the greatest influence on his practice. Together, Cunningham and Cage proposed a number of radical innovations. The most famous and controversial of these concerned the relationship between dance and music, which they concluded may occur in the same time and space, but should be created independently of one another. Since the early 1950s the central, only occasionally broken, law of Cunningham dance theater was that the music, designs and choreography are made separately and not assembled until dress rehearsal or the first night. (NY Times)

A slide show of his life and career is here. (NY Times)

photos linked from MCDC Flickr.

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