Merce Cunningham 1919-2009, La danse en héritage

Director Marie-Hélène Rebois follows the last tour honoring the man who has been indisputably one of the major artists of the 21st century. Her movie show that the question of transmission of intangible heritage remains.

After the death of Merce Cunningham in 2009, his company prepared its dissolution to let the Merce Cunningham Trust manage the choreographer’s legacy. Marie-Hélène Rebois follows the last tour paying tribute to the man who was undeniably one of the major artists of the 20th century. Alternating rehearsal periods, images from archives, and interviews, her film raises the issue of the transmission of a truly intangible heritage. 

It is Merce Cunningham himself who wanted a foundation to take over from the company. Created in 1954, the company has seen several generations of dancers come and go. For this tribute tour through a number of cities world-wide, the last artists to have worked on his choreographies reassemble the emblematic pieces that, from Suite for Five (1956) to CRWDSPCR (1993), illustrate the evolution of his work, in the course of his encounters with the leading musicians and visual artists of his time – Cage, Warhol, Johns, Rauschenberg – and technological breakthroughs – the Life Forms software. In front of Marie-Hélène Rebois’s camera, his close collaborators ask themselves how they can perpetuate a technique entirely turned towards experimentation. As although, after this last tour, many sources – notes, photographs, films, videos- will continue to reveal Cunningham’s constant taste for all that’s new, nothing will replace the dancers’ presence on the stage. 

The title for “RainForest” came from Cunningham’s childhood memories of the Northwest, and the rainforest in the Olympic Peninsula. “RainForest”  differed from Cunningham’s other pieces in that, with the exception of  Cunningham, each of the six dancers performed his or her role, then left  the stage and never returned. Andy Warhol agreed to let Cunningham use  his installation “Silver Clouds“–a number of Mylar pillows  filled with helium, so that they floated freely in the air. The dancers  wore flesh-colored leotards and tights, which Jasper Johns (uncredited)  cut with a razor blade, to give the costumes a roughened appearance. The  music was by David Tudor, and evoked the chirping and chattering of  birds and animals.

RainForest was first performed by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company on March 9, 1968 in Buffalo, New York.

Source : Ballet de Lorraine