Merce Cunningham Dance Company
As Cunningham’s singular style and technique coalesced, his company did as well, and by the 1950s he had established the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Cage, Cunningham, the company dancers, and crew members (along with their costumes, set pieces, props, and food) traveled the country in a VW Microbus.
Promotional booklet, Merce Cunningham Dance Company, 1963
Festival of Contemporary Arts Program, University of Illinois, March 1953
The official establishment of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company took place at Black Mountain College in August 1953. This performance at the University of Illinois in March of that year is the first time the group was billed using the “company” designation, according to David Vaughan, the Company’s long-time archivist.
World Tour
In 1964, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company embarked on a six-month world tour that catapulted the company to world fame and renown, while at the same time creating internal tensions. With a large company (16 members, including musicians, designers and administrators) and a packed schedule (30 stops in 14 countries), the tour was an expensive undertaking. Financial stressors, artistic differences, physical injuries, and hurt feelings mounted, and by the end of the tour, Robert Rauschenberg and some of the dancers had departed the company.
Press and audience attention abroad was mixed, as it was in the U.S. By all accounts, however, the tour raised MCDC’s profile. According to Cunningham, “Until that tour, we had received very little press attention… and when we got back, we felt the difference here in New York. Some of that worldwide attention had seeped back to the U.S.A.”
Draft budget, 1964
This draft lists a proposed budget of just under $100,000. All members were paid weekly, with no per diem. Aside from the grants listed here, the Cunningham Dance Foundation was created for the purpose of managing funds for this tour. Additional performances added during the tour during gaps in the schedule (including an extended run in London) defrayed some of the mounting costs.
New York Herald Tribune clipping, 1964
The company was already a month into their tour at the time of this newspaper coverage, showing the group in a pre-tour rehearsal (photographs by Seymour Linden).
Program, Museum Event No. 1, Vienna, June 24, 1964
This performance at the Museum des 20.Jahrhunderts, during the MCDC world tour, prompted Cunningham’s innovation known as an “Event” when there was no space for performance in the museum. According to Cunningham, “a regular repertory program … would not make sense. The audience had no place to go at the intermissions, there was no curtain, no wings, no lights, no place to put scenery.” Cunningham chose pieces of existing dances that would make sense in this space, performed over portions of Cage’s Atlas Eclipticalis.
Program, Merce Cunningham & Dance Company, Bangkok
Promotional flyer, Merce Cunningham & Dance Company, Sogetsu Art Center, Tokyo
Two promotional pieces show the company’s appearances in Thailand and Japan. In Thailand, the performance was billed as a Royal Command Performance and the company performed for the king and queen. Cage’s connections in India and Japan were the catalyst for the idea of a tour. Cage had already built a connection with the Sogetsu Art Center, the center having sponsored him on a 1959 tour with David Tudor. The company’s time in Japan brought the tour to a close.
Take the Tour
Travel along with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company on their World Tour. Scroll down for each new stop. You’ll find some extra info, images, and video along the way.
After the Tour
Letter from Carolyn Brown to Cunningham and Cage, 1964
In this letter, written about a month after the tour, company member Carolyn Brown lays out the creative and physical frustration she was feeling in the aftermath. Later, in her book Chance and Circumstance, she devoted five chapters to the world tour, saying of this letter that she “wanted to enter into a dialog with [Cage and Cunningham] in order to understand their thoughts and feelings, as well as my own.” Both wrote back to her, Cage revealing some of the financial distress they were in. Many years later, Cunningham also revealed he was dealing with an injury during this time.
