Merce Cunningham...who is he?

Merce Cunningham was born on April 16th, 1919 in Centralia, Washington. He had two brothers: one older, one younger. His brothers followed his father's footsteps into the legal profession.
Cunningham recieved his first formal dance training at what is now known as Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle. At the age of twenty he began his professional dance career when Martha Graham saw him dance and asked him to join her company; he ended up being a soloist in Graham’s company for six years.
He worked with John Cage whom was his life partner and usually collaborated with him. Merce founded the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in 1953. He did this while he was in residency at Black Mountain College. His interests as a choreographer included space, time, and technology. He choreographed over 150 dances. For his 90th birthday he created a new piece of work called Nearly Ninety which was performed in April 2009 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Some notable dancers that have trained with Cunningham that now have their own companies include (but is not limited to) Paul Taylor, Trisha Brown, and Karole Armitage.
As I mentioned earlier, one of his choreographic interests was technology. He used a program called DanceForms, which can be found on his company’s website, which is a program that allows you to draw out choreographic ideas and bring them to 3D life. He also had his own webcast series which he called Mondays with Merce.
Some of the awards that he earned during his lifetime include National Medal of Arts (1990), the MacArthur Fellowship (1985), Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award (2009), Japan’s Imperiale (2005), the British Laurence Olivier Award (1985). In 2004 he was named Officer of the Legion d’Honneur in France.
Prior to his death on July 26th, 2009 he created a Legacy Plan to direct his company and ensure the preservation of his artistic legacy.

Websites used to find this information…
http://www.merce.org/index.html
www.wikipedia.com