Merce Cunningham


Merce Cunningham has been extending the frontiers of choreography for more than half a century, most recently with his use of the computer program LifeForms, which allows him to devise dance phrases by means of a simulated human figure, visible on the monitor screen from all angles. Each work he has choreographed since 1991 makes use of this program, and each is quite different from the others. Beach Birds, as its title suggests, is one of Cunningham's "nature studies," drawing on his observation of the movement not only of birds but of human beings as well.
Kuo-Chieh Ting kcting.cs.uh.edu