简宁汉
מרס קנינגהם
マース·カニングハム
머시 디스 커닝햄
Мерс Каннингем

Paul Kaiser
Shelley Eshkar
BIPED

source: mercecunninghamorg

Cunningham has written: “The dance gives me the feeling of switching channels on the TV…the action varies from slow formal sections to rapid broken-up sequences where it is difficult to see all the complexity.” Many people have commented on the elegiac nature of the closing moments of the piece. The décor for BIPED is an exploration of the possibilities of the animation technology of motion capture. The digital artists Paul Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar collaborated with Cunningham, who, working with two dancers, choreographed 70 phrases that were transposed into digital images. These animated images, as well as abstract patterns (vertical and horizontal lines, dots, clusters), are projected on to a scrim at the front of the stage, behind which the live dancers may be seen. Cunningham also used computer software, DanceForms, to develop the choreography for the dance, which is in a number of sections: solos, duets, trios, and ensemble dances. The music by Gavin Bryars, also called Biped, is partly recorded and partly played live on acoustic instruments. Suzanne Gallo’s costumes use a metallic fabric that reflects light. At one point in the dance the men, clothed in pajama-like outfits in a transparent fabric, bring on tops in the same fabric for the women. Aaron Copp devised the lighting, dividing the stage floor into squares lit in what looked like a random sequence, as well as the curtained booths at the back of the stage that permit the dancers to appear and disappear.
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source: mercecunninghamorg

MERCE CUNNINGHAM (1919-2009) was a leader of the American avant-garde throughout his seventy year career and is considered one of the most important choreographers of our time. Through much of his life, he was also one of the greatest American dancers. With an artistic career distinguished by constant innovation, Cunningham expanded the frontiers not only of dance, but also of contemporary visual and performing arts. His collaborations with artistic innovators from every creative discipline have yielded an unparalleled body of American dance, music, and visual art.

“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 (1952)
Of all his collaborations, Cunningham’s work with John Cage, his life partner from the 1940s until Cage’s death in 1992, 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. The two also made extensive use of chance procedures, abandoning not only musical forms, but narrative and other conventional elements of dance composition—such as cause and effect, and climax and anticlimax. For Cunningham the subject of his dances was always dance itself. Born in Centralia, Washington on April 16, 1919, Cunningham began his professional modern dance career at 20 with a six-year tenure as a soloist in the Martha Graham Dance Company. In 1944 he presented his first solo show and in 1953 formed the Merce Cunningham Dance Company as a forum to explore his groundbreaking ideas. Over the course of his career, Cunningham choreographed more than 150 dances and over 800 “Events.” Dancers who trained with Cunningham and have gone on to form their own companies include Paul Taylor, Trisha Brown, Lucinda Childs, Karole Armitage, Foofwa d’Immobilité, and Jonah Bokaer. Cunningham’s lifelong passion for exploration and innovation made him a leader in applying new technologies to the arts. He began investigating dance on film in the 1970s, and choreographed using the computer program DanceForms during the latter part of his career. He explored motion capture technology to create décor for BIPED (1999), and his interest in new media led to the creation of Mondays with Merce. This webcast series provides a never-before-seen look at the Company and Cunningham’s teaching technique with video of advanced technique class, Company rehearsal, archival footage, and interviews with current and former Company members, choreographers, and collaborators.

An active choreographer and mentor to the arts world until his death at the age of 90, Cunningham earned some of the highest honors bestowed in the arts. Among his many awards are the National Medal of Arts (1990) and the MacArthur Fellowship (1985). He also received the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award in 2009, Japan’s Praemium Imperiale in 2005, the British Laurence Olivier Award in 1985, and was named Officier of the Legion d’Honneur in France in 2004. Cunningham’s life and artistic vision have been the subject of four books and three major exhibitions, and his works have been presented by groups including the Ballet of the Paris Opéra, New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theater, White Oak Dance Project, and London’s Rambert Dance Company. Cunningham passed away in his New York City home on July 26, 2009. Always forward-thinking, Cunningham developed the precedent-setting Legacy Plan prior to his death, to guide his Company and ensure the preservation of his artistic legacy.
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source: festival-automne

BIPED (1999)
Choreography, Merce Cunningham
Music, Gavin Bryars, BIPED
Décor, Shelley Eshkar, Paul Kaiser
Costumes, Suzanne Gallo
Lighting, Aaron Copp
With 13 dancers
First Performance: Cal Performances’ Zellerbach Hall, University of California, Berkeley, California. 23 April 1999.
The décor for BIPED is an exploration of the possibilities of the new animation technology of motion capture. The movement (but not the physical appearance) of the dancers was transposed into digital images. Paul Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar collaborated with Cunningham to make a new piece of virtual choreography. The dancers involved in the motion capture process were Jarred Phillips, Jeannie Steele, and Robert Swinston.
BIPED was commissioned by the American Dance Festival through the Doris Duke Awards for New Work, The Barbican Centre, London, and Cal Performances, Berkeley, CA.
Major support was provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, the AT&T Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts (with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Altria Group, Inc.) in partnership with the Walker Art Center.
Gavin Bryars BIPED is used by arrangement with European American Music Distributors LLC, sole U.S. and Canadian agent for Schott Music Limited, London, publisher and copyright owner.

Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s dancers for the homage tour :
Brandon Collwes, Dylan Crossman, Emma Desjardins, Jennifer Goggans, John Hinrichs, Daniel Madoff, Rashaun Mitchell, Marcie Munnerlyn, Krista Nelson, Silas Riener, Jamie Scott, Robert Swinston, Melissa Toogood, Andrea Weber
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source: blognaver

메르 시에 “머시 디스”빌립 커닝햄은 (1919년 4월 16일에서 2009년 7월 26일까지) 50 년 이상 동안 전위 미국의 최전선에 있었던 미국의 댄서와 안무가했습니다. 많은 그의 삶의 전반에 걸쳐 커닝햄은 미국의 춤에서 최고의 창조적인 세력 중 하나로 여겨졌다. 그는 음악가 존 케이지와 데이비드 튜더, 예술가 로버트 Rauschenberg와 브루스 Nauman, 디자이너 로미오 Gigli, 그리고 건축가 Benedetta Tagliabue 등 다른 분야의 예술가 들과의 빈번한 협력에도 주목할 것입니다. 그는 다음과 같은 가수로 제작된 작품은 춤의 세계를 넘어 전위 예술에 깊은 영향을 미쳤다.