From the magazine

What a joy to see some Merce Cunningham again

Plus: a dance adaptation of a Victorian novel that actually works

Rupert Christiansen
Wings of desire: Lyon Opera Ballet performing Merce Cunningham’s Beach Birds AGATHE POUPENEY
EXPLORE THE ISSUE 29 March 2025
issue 29 March 2025

How salutary to encounter the cool cerebral elegance of Merce Cunningham’s choreography again. A figure at the heart of the abstract tendency in post-war American culture, the lover and collaborator of John Cage, Cunningham emptied barefoot dance of ideology, symbolism, plot, personality, pretension: instead it became purely an exploration of bodies in movement, responsive to chance, sound and light.

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