I haven't really found anything about any world events that might have influenced any of Cunningham's work. I don't really interpret Cunningham to be one that is influenced by what is going on in the world. Some things that happened during his time that could have influenced his work include:
• World War II: The Red Army arrives at Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland and finds the Nazi concentration camp where 1.1-1.5 million people were murdered.
1952
• Premiere of John Cage's 4'33" in Woodstock, New York
1962
• The Mona Lisa was assessed at US $100 million, the highest insurance valuance for a painting in history
1968—Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "mountaintop" speech
Hollywood adopts the movie ratings system
1980
• Mark Morris, choreographer, gets together some friends, calls them the Mark Morris Dance Group, and puts on its first show at the Merce Cunningham Studios
• 1970’s—computers become commercially feasible
-->By the 90’s computers had become a common household appliance
---->The computer was very important to Merce as he suffered from arthritis
-->Used the computer program DanceForms to make his works
• 1983—the CD was officially launched in the UK
• 1996—the first DVD was shown
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This list is overwhelming. Could you outline some of the more pertinent issues of the day (maybe in music or the visual art world) and give me a more concrete idea of influence on Cunningham's choreographic development. I don't think Mother Teresa or Princess Diana had much to do with Merce's thinking or choreography.
ReplyDeleteI revised the list...take a look. As I said in my post, I don't think Merce was very influenced by what was going on in the world. Although there are things that became possible, such as choreographing a dance through the use of a computer program, that Merce was able to utilize. As you know John Cage and Cunningham worked closely together so sound technology play a big role in their life--sound recording systems were greatly changed, especially after WWII.
ReplyDelete