Cunningham
I had never heard of Merce Cunningham prior to Alla Kovgan’s documentary, but I’m now endlessly fascinated by his art. The film recreates some of the most famous of his dance choreography, with the most recent members of the dance company he founded, while archival footage and recordings set the context for his life, and work. If the opportunity presents itself to see this film in 3D, I, for one, hope to see it that way. Visually, Cunningham’s dances are uniquely potent and imaginative.
Kovgan presents this as an exploration through Cunningham’s career, starting from the beginning, with Cunningham and collaborators essentially setting the stage for the modern recreations to come. The dances come from 1942 to 1972, and they are performed with precision and wonderful displays of movement in a way that is stunning to behold. The pieces are by the likes of John Cage and David Tudor, and he also collaborated with artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. There’s a mesmerizing beauty to what we’re watching that is contemplative and lovely to partake in.
We hear audio at the beginning of Cunningham describing how he viewed dance as it relates to what it is set against. The dance is what the dance is; how it follows the beat of the music. I think that’s why people like Cage and Warhol make sense for Cunningham to have collaborated with; they were people who viewed their artistic ventures as something beyond the conventional understanding of their medium. But watching the dancers in this film move, and seeing how the light and camera works together with the movements in Kovgan’s film, this is almost a new performance piece for Cunningham’s art in and of itself, even though he has been dead since 2009. It’s a compelling immersion into one man’s unique art, and regardless of whether you’re interested in the art of dance or not, it’s well worth watching as a singularly unique expression of art.
