Merce Cunningham quotes
Merce Cunningham was an influential American dancer and choreographer, renowned for his innovative contributions to modern dance. His pioneering collaborations with composers and visual artists transformed the possibilities of performance art. He profoundly impacted generations of dancers and continues to inspire creativity in the dance world. Here are 8 of his quotes:
If a dancer dances - which is not the same as having theories about dancing or wishing to dance or trying to dance or remembering in his body someone else's dance - but if the dancer dances, everything is there.... our ecstasy in dance comes from the possible gift of freedom, the exhilarating moment that this exposing of the bare energy can give us. What is meant is not license, but freedom...
Merce Cunningham
Cage took it to work in his way of making compositions then; and he used the idea of 64-the number of the hexagrams -to say that you had 64, for example, sounds; then you could cast, by chance, to find which sound first appeared, cast again, to say which sound came second, cast again, so that it's done by, in that sense, chance operations. Instead of finding out what you think should follow-say a particular sound-what did the I Ching suggest? Well, I took this also for dance.
Merce Cunningham
Merce Cunningham
Photo:
Floor,
CC BY-SA 2.0
Occupation: American Dancer
Born: April 16, 1919
Died: July 26, 2009
Quotes count: 8
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