When it comes to modern American dance, there have been few figures bigger than Merce Cunningham in the last 60-odd years. Cunningham, who died in 2009 at age 90, was a leading choreographer and dancer of the second half of the 20th century who trained a generation of future dancers and collaborated with many other artists, including musicians such as John Cage, Brian Eno and Radiohead.
Marianne Preger-Simon, of Whately, got a close-up look at Cunningham’s work — and his artistic genius — early in the choreographer’s career. In her memoir, “Dancing with Merce Cunningham,” Preger-Simon relates the story of how, as a student at Cornell University in the late 1940s, she spent her junior year in France to study theater. But in Paris, where she lived with a French family, the author met Cunningham — and the whole trajectory of her life changed.
Preger-Simon notes that post-war Paris was already blossoming with a variety of new artistic expression when, in late spring of 1949, she attended a dance recital by Cunningham in the studio of a Paris artist. She had previously seen Cunningham dance in New York City, where he first worked with the Martha Graham Company, and admired him, but the private performance in Paris really amazed her.
As she later wrote to a friend, “My goodness, I have never seen anything like him in my life…. He has such a perfect understanding and use of space, of his body, of time — it’s really terribly exciting and moving …”
Preger-Simon had done some dancing herself in Cornell, and she talked with Cunningham after his Paris performance, striking up a friendship with him. When she returned to the U.S., she switched her drama studies to the New School for Social Research (where one of her friends and classmates was a young Ben Gazzara) in New York and also helped Cunningham, back in the city himself, find a new studio. Then she began taking dance classes with him and joined his dance company.
Preger-Simon’s work with Cunningham, and her close friendship with him, provides a great inside view of the choreographer and the way he pushed boundaries. She notes that some of those early years were lean ones for Cunningham and the troupe — she recalls a 22-hour bus ride to North Carolina for one performance — as American audiences took awhile to adapt to modern dance and its non-narrative style. Cunningham and his life partner, the composer John Cage, also created the idea that music and dance could exist separately within a performance, she notes.
And Preger-Simon also touches on a certain innocence of those days. “Many of us dancers were somewhat in love with (Cunningham),” she writes, “having little comprehension of homosexuality.”
Preger-Simon left the company in 1958 to begin a family, a difficult decision that she writes about in depth. She later taught drama courses and wrote dance criticism and, along with starting a family, she became a psychotherapist. She also maintained her friendship with Cunningham over the years; she was able to say goodbye to him in person during his last days in 2009. She recalls right to the end his famous slogan: “The only way to do it is to do it!”
The documentary “Cunningham,” by director Alla Kovgan, is currently playing at the Amherst Cinema.
Steve Pfarrer can be reached at spfarrer@gazettenet.com.