Merce Cunningham: Fifty Years

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Unlike so many biographies of dance maestros, Merce Cunningham: Fifty Years offers no litany of substance or psychological abuse. The volume, assembled by the archivist of Merce Cunningham's world-renowned U.S. company, records and analyzes Cunningham's work process and documents the provenance of his modern dance classics. Heavily spiced with biographical detail, Merce Cunningham packages the choreographer's life story in a lovely design that respects his whole body and conveys a rare sense of movement in its mass of still photos.

Book Description

Merce Cunningham celebrates the career of one of the most important artists of the twentieth century, from his first innovative and explosive solo dances to the present. This unique book incorporates images of performances by many world-renowned photographers, including Imogen Cunningham, Barbara Morgan, Annie Leibovitz, Peter Hujar, and Arnold Eagle.

Customer Reviews:

Merce Cunningham:Fifty Years.......2000-08-02

An excellent resource. Insightful. Beautiful pictures. Highly recommend for folks in dance education, collaborative artists, school teachers, dancers, and children.

Chance and Circumstance: Twenty Years with Cage and Cunningham

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A brilliant insider's view of Cunningham and Cage
A Major Document
If only this had been published 30 years ago
revisiting merce with CB

Chance and Circumstance: Twenty Years with Cage and Cunningham
Carolyn Brown
Manufacturer: Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0394401913
Release Date: 2007-03-20

Book Description

The long-awaited memoir from one of the most celebrated modern dancers of the past fifty years: the story of her own remarkable career, of the formative years of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and of the two brilliant, iconoclastic, and forward-thinking artists at its center—Merce Cunningham and John Cage.

From its inception in the l950s until her departure in the l970s, Carolyn Brown was a major dancer in the Cunningham company and part of the vibrant artistic community of downtown New York City out of which it grew. She writes about embarking on her career with Cunningham at a time when he was a celebrated performer but a virtually unknown choreographer. She describes the heady exhilaration—and dire financial straits—of the company’s early days, when composer Cage was musical director and Robert Rauschenberg designed lighting, sets and costumes; and of the struggle for acceptance of their controversial, avant-garde dance. With unique insight, she explores Cunningham’s technique, choreography, and experimentation with compositional procedures influenced by Cage. And she probes the personalities of these two men: the reticent, moody, often secretive Cunningham, and the effusive, fun-loving, enthusiastic Cage.

Chance and Circumstance is an intimate chronicle of a crucial era in modern dance, and a revelation of the intersection of the worlds of art, music, dance, and theater that is Merce Cunningham’s extraordinary hallmark.

Customer Reviews:

A brilliant insider's view of Cunningham and Cage.......2007-08-12

Merce Cunningham and John Cage are two of the most significant figures in dance and music in the second half of the 20th century. Cage, who is aruguably the most influential artist of the second half of the century, has been much written about, and was himself a prolific author. Cunningham has also published influential books, and the two have been the subject of numerous documentaries. But not until now has there been an insider's view of what it was like to be an intimate part of the Cage-Cunningham inner circle, a world that included artists Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, composers Earl Brown, Morton Feldman, and David Tudor, and many others. Brown has written an honest, sincere account of what life was like touring the US in a VW bus with Cage at the wheel, stopping for picnics along the way. Moreover, while Brown clearly adores both Cage and Cunningham, she doesn't hesitate to provide occasionally hair-raising accounts of things said and done by these two artists that seem incongruous with the myths built up around them. In that regard, Brown renders them human in a way I have never previosuly encountered. Reading that Cage, while in his cups one night, held forth on how turned on he was by Merce, should finally set the record straight (pardon the pun) about Cage's sexuality. The book is a treasury of great anecdotes about Brown's life on the road with an astonishing group of artists, and I felt privileged to have been privy to the journey. It is also a savvy analysis of Cunningham's choreography from the perspective of someone who actually danced it. This book should be required reading for anyone seriously interested in understanding the lives and work of Cage and Cunningham.

A Major Document.......2007-06-27

The wonderful thing about this book is that it gives a very close-up view of the Cage/Cunningham world, especially in the early years of the Cunningham Dance Company. It also presents the two major figures, John Cage and Merce Cunningham, in a critical light. We see them both as the towering creative forces that the outer world knows, as well as the difficult, moody, and complicated people they really are, or were.

The book is exhausting in the way it reveals Brown's life as a dancer, and the tensions and struggles of the Company. Perhaps it could be a few pages shorter, but (in the first half of the book) the insights into the world of modern dance in general, and the NY avant-garde in the 1950's and 60's in particular is fascinating and valuable.

It's also a good example of why people should keep detailed journals.

If only this had been published 30 years ago.......2007-05-13

This book is an excellent opportunity to examine Merce Cunningham's work. Carolyn Brown was probably his favorite dancer. She was intimately connected to Merce and John Cage. Many will come away with a more real understanding of what "chance" means to this work. This is very much a dancer's view of things. I only wonder why it took her thirty-five years to write this book. She confesses to the book deal being offered and signed almost as soon as she retired. There are telling comments on State support of the arts and on unions.

revisiting merce with CB.......2007-05-08

As a former student and long time friend of Ms. Brown and Merce Cunningham, I was moved and delighted to revisit the struggles, perseverance and creativity that went into daily life during the years Ms. Brown spent in the Cunningham Company and to understand, from her viewpoint, the inner workings of Merce's choreographic process. I learned so much and appreciate the knowledge, skill and levels of artistry, friendship and as well as travail that made those years so vital. Thanks, CB

Merce Cunningham: Creative Elements ((Choreography & Dance Ser. ; Vol. 4, Pt. 2))

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Merce Cunningham: Creative Elements ((Choreography & Dance Ser. ; Vol. 4, Pt. 2))

Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 3718658348

Book Description

Merce Cunningham reached the age of 75 in 1994, an age at which many creative artists are content to rest on their laurels, or at least to leave behind whatever controversies they may have caused during their careers. No so Cunningham. In the first place, his 70s have been a time of intense creativity in which he has choreographed as many as four new works a year. Cunningham is a strongly committed as ever to the discovery of new ways of moving and of making movement, refusing to be hampered by the physical limitations that have come with age. Since 1991 every new work has been made at least in part with the use of the computer program Life Forms, which enables him to devise choreographic phrases that he himself would be unable to perform - and which challenge and develop the virtuosity of the young dancers in his company.
The essays collected in this special issue of Choreography and Dance were written over the last few years and discuss various aspects of the work of Cunningham as seen b

The bride & the bachelors;: Five masters of the avant-garde. [With a new introd. and expanded text] (A Viking compass book)

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The bride & the bachelors;: Five masters of the avant-garde. [With a new introd. and expanded text] (A Viking compass book)
Calvin Tomkins
Manufacturer: Viking Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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Merce Cunningham
Klosty
Manufacturer: Dutton Adult
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0841503729

Merce Cunningham: The Modernizing of Modern Dance

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Engaging but repetitive
Superb tour through the 20th century -- and beyond

Merce Cunningham: The Modernizing of Modern Dance
Roger Copeland
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0415965756

Book Description

Merce Cunningham and the Modernizing of Modern Dance is a complete study of the life and work of this seminal choreographer/dancer. More than just a biography, Copeland explores Cunningham's life story against a backdrop of an entire century of developments in American art. Copeland traces his own experience of Cunningham's dances-from the turbulent late '60s through the experimental works of the '80s and '90s-showing how Cunningham moved dance away from the highly emotional, subjective work of Martha Graham to a return to a new kind of classicism. This book places Cunningham in the forefront of an artistic revolution, a revolution that has its parallels in music (John Cage, and the minimalist composers who followed him), painting (Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg), theater (the "happenings" of the '60s), and dance itself (the Judson School of dancers). An iconclastic and highly readable analysis, this book will be enjoyed by all those interested in the development of the American arts in the 20th century.

Customer Reviews:

Engaging but repetitive.......2004-04-19

As a highly unschooled Cunningham fan -- this is the first dance book I've ever read -- I found Copeland's book engaging in its scope, contextualizing Cunningham's choreography in relation to the leading cultural and aesthetic movements of the last half century. Copeland has essentially one thesis, stated fairly cleanly in the introduction. I would highly recommend the introduction. Unfortunately the rest of the book can be tedious and dogmatic as Copeland attempts to bolster his arguments through a strategy of repetition and exhaustion. Every movement and idea of the late 20th century seems to be a nail for Copeland's rhetorical hammer, and while I found the tie-ins and tidbits of history interesting enough to finish the book, I found the tone and structure of the book to be artificially argumentative and quite lacking in the openness and nuance that Copland praises Cunningham for.

Superb tour through the 20th century -- and beyond.......2004-04-17

What an extraordinary book! Copeland does not just tell the story of one figure, even though Cunningham is a great figure central to just about every artistic movement of the last 70 years. Copeland also relates in lucid prose how each of those movements arose, what made it tick, and how its legacy affects us today. After the "culture wars" of the 1990s, there were very few individuals left standing who could both appreciate and criticize the twists and turns of modernism and post-modernism. Copeland is among this saving remnant. If you are looking for a strong-minded, witty, engaging, eloquent Virgil to guide you through the Inferno and Purgatory of art since the 1930s, look no further. Copeland's your man.

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Merce Cunningham
Melissa Harris , and Merce Cunningham
Manufacturer: Charta
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Merce Cunningham : Fifty Years

ASIN: 8881582163
Release Date: 1999-07-02

Book Description

Artwork by Merce Cunningham. Edited by Germano Celant. Contributions by David Vaughn. Text by Melissa Harris.

Merce Cunningham: Dancing in Space and Time : Essays 1944-1992

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Merce Cunningham: Dancing in Space and Time : Essays 1944-1992
Jack Anderson
Manufacturer: A Cappella Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1556521529

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Merce Cunningham: Fifty Forward
David Vaughan
Manufacturer: Cunningham Dance Foundation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: CD-ROM
ASIN: 0976953706
Release Date: 2005-06-30

Product Description

The book "Merce Cunningham: Fifty Years", by David Vaughan, published by Aperture in 1997, concluded with the creation of a major work, "Ocean", in 1994. The ten years since that time have been an extraordinarily creative and productive time for Merce Cunningham and his Dance Company. This supplement, "Fifty Forward", continues the chronicle of their activities from 1995 to 2004, when the company undertook the reconstruction of "Ocean" with a view to its revival at the Lincoln Center Festival 2005. Accordingly, the supplement is subtitled "From 'Ocean' to 'Ocean'". In keeping with Merce Cunningham's known interest in technology, this supplement is available digitally in the form of a CD-ROM. Each year is chronicled with detailed text about the activities of the company including performances, personnel, and repertory along with many full-color photographs. Also included are exclusive interviews with Merce Cunningham, conducted by David Vaughan, about each new dance work Merce has choreographed since 1994. System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader 6.0 and QuickTime Player 6.0, or higher, both of which can be downloaded from the internet at no cost.

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Good Resource
A perfect reference for American Modern Dance

Cunningham/Monk/Jones
Merce Cunningham
Manufacturer: Walker Art Center
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Meredith Monk (PAJ Books: Art + Performance)

ASIN: 0935640568
Release Date: 1998-07-02

Book Description

Recogninzing the importance of performance in 20th century avant-garde art, this catalogue traces the careers of three artists who have each made a significant contribution to that history. Merce Cunningham, Meredith Monk and Bill T. Jones.

Customer Reviews:

Good Resource.......2002-07-04

This book is a good read. I recommend it for the individuals interested in history, collaborative arts and innovative ideas and techniques in the performing arts.

A perfect reference for American Modern Dance.......2000-04-08

Art Performs Life is a unique and authouritive guide to the works and view points of todays most prominent 3 American Choreographers. It emphasizes on the collision of dance and life. Their view points on the gendering of dance and technique are stated clearly.The political and social agenda the choregraphers use and their individuality in representing life on stage using major issues is brilliantly represented in this book. It is a must have for anyone interested in modern dance

Book Description

The first field guide to the seashells of India, this book describes more than 300 common species, providing precise descriptions of shell morphology, habits and the habitat of each species. It includes 13 full color plates, bibliography, glossary and index of scientific names and will
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The Buln-Buln and the Brolga
Joseph Furphy
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The Buln-Buln and the Brolga [EasyRead Comfort Edition]

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Joseph Furphy
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Release Date: 2007-01-03

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The work that captures the essence of simplicity in common man. The characters are drawn with natural warmth and reflect the authors viewpoint. The work stimulates philosophical reflections and entertains in the most subtle manner.

The Buln-Buln and the Brolga [EasyRead Edition]

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Joseph Furphy
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The Buln-Buln and the Brolga [EasyRead Large Edition]
Joseph Furphy
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Bushman and Bookworm: Letters of Joseph Furphy

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Bushman and Bookworm: Letters of Joseph Furphy
Joseph Furphy
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This collection of 250 letters, written by Joseph Furphy over the last 30 years of his life, who once described himself as 'half-bushman and half-bookworm'. Through these letters the reader can trace the life of the bullocky-cum-foundry worker who, against the odds, wrote a national classic. They reveal this unusual man in the most important relationships of his life: with his mother who outlived him; with Kate Baker, the schoolteacher twenty years his junior, who loved him and believed in his genius; with William Cathels, the fellow-blacksmith and autodidact to whose learning he always deferred; with A. G. Stephens, the imperious critic, who recognized the worth of Such is Life and supervised its publication; and, most interesting of all, with Miles Franklin, the young author of My Brilliant Career towards whom he was deeply attracted. Readers familiar with Such is Life will find that their understanding and enjoyment of that idiosyncratic book will be extended and deepened by a reading of these letters. Readers unfamiliar with Such is Life will find these letters a fascinating introduction to a remarkable man and his writing.

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