In Honor of Merce

Last Sunday, an outdoor dance concert was held in celebration of Merce Cunningham’s life.   The Merce Cunningham Dance Company performed at Rockefeller Park in Battery Park City.  A beautiful green oasis, the park has an unobstructed westward view of the water.  There could not have been a more perfect location to commemorate one of the dance community’s most brilliant members in the city he loved most.

There were two stages on the lawn.  Flat, raised platforms without walls, the viewer was given the option to choose between not only two stages, but also to sit on any side of the stage he/she pleased.   The audience was treated with an incredible sense of expansiveness.   In most outdoor dance performances, it is challenging to get a view.  With two stages set up in this fashion however, the audience had the luxury of spreading out, sitting comfortably anywhere on the lawn, and enjoying the privacy of their own, individual experience of the dance.

One minute after six the Cunningham dancers took their places.  Long, supple bodies where clothed in earthy colored unitards-unforgiving dance costumes that reveal every joint interaction and muscular decision the dancer makes.   Elegant, confident, sensual, the Cunningham dancers bring an elite level of professionalism to the stage.  These dancers have nerves of steel; they perform one of the most challenging modern techniques the dance world knows.   Absent of stutter steps, every movement is pure and exposed.  The clarity of the structure allows the viewer to marvel at the anatomical presentation of the body.  When watching the Cunningham dancers, we are given the rare opportunity to witness the highest potential of the body’s fundamental mechanics.   The cross-spiraling of the body becomes outwardly visible with every contraction of the torso, extension of the leg, and twisted leap that flies through the air.   Without a ceiling to cover their heads, the physical possibilities of these dancers were boundless.   Spacious, glorious, enduring…the integrity of every movement was present.   One could almost taste the tactile deliciousness of each plie and point of the foot.

As the hour and 15 minutes performance neared its end, one could sense the contemplative, calm, loving embrace of the audience.  Soothing breezes from the water cooled the sting of summer sweat and rustled the leaves of nearby trees.   One could sense of the humbleness of these intelligent dancers, almost as if something greater was working through them… their bodies becoming the conduit through which the universality of the experience became palpable.  And something in the shapes their bodies created together and individually brought a deep sense of release, satisfaction, and delight to the back of the brain.   Merce had the brilliance to subtly relate the lines of the body to organic geometry…and make his audience notice.   He gave the audience freedom, choice, and the opportunity to experience the possibilities held within the human form.   What a beautiful life.  He will be remembered with joy and love.