Passages: Choreographer Merce Cunningham

Published 10:15 pm Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Choreographer and dancer Merce Cunningham, hailed as a revolutionary artist who remade the very definition of dance, died Sunday.

Cunningham — who was still working as he marked his 90th birthday earlier this year — died at his Manhattan home, said Leah Sandals, spokeswoman for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. She said he died of natural causes.

The onetime Martha Graham dancer was credited with remaking modern dance by creating works of pure movement divorced from storytelling and even from musical accompaniment.

In a career that spanned more than 60 years, Cunningham determined steps by chance — saying it freed his imagination — and shattered unwritten rules such as the need for dancers to face the audience and keep time with the music.

Among his creations — more than 150 in all: “Sounddance,” 1975; “RainForest,” 1968; “Septet,” 1953; “Exchange,” 1978; “Trackers,” 1991; “Pictures,” 1984; “Fabrications,” 1987; “Cargo X,” 1989; and “Biped,” 1999.

Associated Press