So, this weekend marked choreographer Merce Cunningham‘s 90th birthday, with celebrations and performances of his latest work — Nearly Ninety— at BAM. Unfortunately I was unable to go — and Apollinaire reminds me just how much I missed — but I decided to compile a list of some reviews since this was such a momentous occasion (many consider Cunningham to be the greatest living choreographer, or the greatest living American choreographer; some consider him to be the last left of the greats):
Macaulay goes even farther and calls Cunningham “the greatest living artist since the death of Samuel Beckett”;
Tobi Tobias hails the choreographer, but critiques Nearly Ninety as well as the decision to let famed dancer Holley Farmer go;
Leigh Witchel describes Nearly Ninety as “dreamlike” in the NY Post;
Blogger Evan Namerow of Dancing Perfectly Free talks about the role of chance operations in NN;
Aynsley Vandenbrouke says NN is Merce’s “ode to his dancers”;
Jordan Hruska calls NN “Bionic Theater” in the Times Magazine’s blog;
New York Magazine’s Daily Intel blog blurbs mainly on the wheelchair-bound curtain call, etc.;
WWDLifestyle has a short list of some celebs who attended the post-performance party on Thursday night;
and here’s a YouTube performance clip from ArtRavels;
And, here are a couple of pre-performance overviews, from NYTimes and NY Magazine.
Apparently, NN will now travel to Madrid.
UPDATE: Also, here is Apollinaire Scherr’s review in the Financial Times. (I’m very happy to see, by the way, that she is now the dance critic for FT!) And here are more of her thoughts on the program and the Cunningham dancers on her Foot in Mouth blog.
And Eva Yaa Asantewaa in Dance Magazine.
Please let me know if I missed anyone.
