Merce Cunningham
The Modernizing of Modern Dance
Published on 2. August 2004
328 pages
978-1-135-88909-8 (ISBN)
Description
Merce Cunningham and the Modernizing of Modern Dance is a complete study of the life and work of this seminal choreographer/dancer. More than just a biography, Copeland explores Cunningham's life story against a backdrop of an entire century of developments in American art. Copeland traces his own experience of Cunningham's dances-from the turbulent late '60s through the experimental works of the '80s and '90s-showing how Cunningham moved dance away from the highly emotional, subjective work of Martha Graham to a return to a new kind of classicism. This book places Cunningham in the forefront of an artistic revolution, a revolution that has its parallels in music (John Cage, and the minimalist composers who followed him), painting (Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg), theater (the happenings of the '60s), and dance itself (the Judson School of dancers). An iconclastic and highly readable analysis, this book will be enjoyed by all those interested in the development of the American arts in the 20th century.
Reviews / Votes
"Copeland's book about the sixty-year career of Merce Cunningham is also a brilliant sixty-year history of theater, dance, art, music and intellectual movements in America. . . ." -- Sally Sommer, Professor of American Dance Studies at Florida State University."Examines the trajectory of Merce The Choreographer and places him just where I think he belongs--as a global artist of the twentieth century moving in all directions into the twenty-first." -- Valda Setterfield, Member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, 1964-1974
"Copeland's book will bring joy to Cunningham partisans." -- Allan Ulrich, Dance Magazine
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
File size
3,48 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-135-88909-8 (9781135889098)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
01/2004
1st Edition
Routledge
€207.00
Shipment within 15-20 days
Book
12/2003
1st Edition
Routledge
€66.90
Shipment within 15-20 days
Person
Roger Copeland is Professor of Theater and Dance at Oberlin College. He is coeditor of the widely used anthology What is Dance? His essays about dance, theater, and film have appeared in The New York Times, The NewRepublic, The Village Voice, and many other publications including The Encyclopedia of Dance and Ballet.
Content
Contents Acknowledgments Introduction 1 From Graham to Cunningham: An Unsentimental Education 2 Portrait of the Artist as a Jung Man 3 Beyond the Ethos of Abstract Expressionism 4 The Limitations of Instinct 5 Contemporary Classicism: Re-Discovering Ballet 6 Primitive Mysteries 7 The Sound of Perceptual Freedom 8 Cunningham, Cage, and Collage 9 Dancing for the Digital Age 10 Re-Thinking the Thinking Body: The Gaze of Upright Posture 11 Modernism, Post-Modernism, and Cunningham 12 Fatal Abstraction: Merce Cunningham and The Politics of Perception 13 Dancing in the Aftermath of 9/11 Index
