Talk:Merce Cunningham

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Dance: Ballet

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Chance technique

does any 1 no about the chance technique

Maybe you should include this quote from a biography.

“John Cage and I became interested in the use of chance in the 50's. There were a number of things, I think, that came about that time about chance. I think one of the very primary things that happened then was the publication of the “I Ching,” the Chinese book of changes, in which you, from which you, can cast your fortune: the hexagrams.

"Cage took it to work, as, in his way of making compositions then; and he used the idea of the 64 -the number of the hexagrams, 64- 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 -the continuity. 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.

“I was working on a title called, “Untitled Solo,” and I had made -this was chance, using the chance operations- a series of movements written on scraps of paper for the legs and the arms, the head, all different. And it was done not to the music but with the music of Christian Wolff.”

Merce Cunningham, [Merce Cunningham: A lifetime of Dance, 2000] --Charlesrkiss 04:32, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation

How is his first name pronounced? Is it one-syllable, rhyming with "verse", or does is it two syllables, like the word "mercy"? Or something else? Pimlottc 06:18, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's "Merce" to rhyme with "verse." -- Andrew Parodi (talk) 09:38, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I met him at the U.S. premier performance of John Cage's Atlas Eclipticalis with Winter Music. That is how the name is pronounced. Bill Jefferys (talk) 00:10, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bennington College Alumni??

The article lists him (at the bottom) in the category "Bennington College Alumni". Is this correct? Clearly he cannot have attended Bennington College as an undergraduate (and it is a strictly undergraduate institution), since it only became co-ed in 1969 (according to the Wiki article on the college). He did have a relationship with the college, a web search indicates that he performed there in the early '40s and since and perhaps he taught there. Is it possible that he was given an honorary degree by the college (that is certainly possible)? But that would not normally be considered to qualify someone for "alumnus/alumna" status, which is usually reserved for someone who actually attended and obtained a degree from the institution as the result of completing a degree course. Bill Jefferys (talk) 00:10, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am wrong; I was reacting to a comment on the Bennington College article, which lists him amongst alumni; that is clearly wrong. Sorry! Bill Jefferys (talk) 00:21, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I was right. I did not anticipate that someone would remove the category as fast as it happened (within 11 minutes of my first posting! Wow!) and I couldn't find the category listing. So I thought I had made a mistake. Thank you Ed Fitzgerald for your prompt attention to this page!! Bill Jefferys (talk) 01:51, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No problem, my pleasure. I'll try to find out where Cunningham went to college (if he did). Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 02:24, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]