The long-awaited memoir from one of the most celebrated modern dancers of the past fifty years: the story of her own remarkable career, of the formative years of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and of the two brilliant, iconoclastic, and forward-thinking artists at its center—Merce Cunningham and John Cage. From its inception in the l950s until her departure in the l970s, Carolyn Brown was a major dancer in the Cunningham company and part of the vibrant artistic community of downtown New York City out of which it grew. She writes about embarking on her career with Cunningham at a time when he was a celebrated performer but a virtually unknown choreographer. She describes the heady exhilaration—and dire financial straits—of the company’s early days, when composer Cage was musical director and Robert Rauschenberg designed lighting, sets and costumes; and of the struggle for acceptance of their controversial, avant-garde dance. With unique insight, she explores Cunningham’s technique, choreography, and experimentation with compositional procedures influenced by Cage. And she probes the personalities of these two men: the reticent, moody, often secretive Cunningham, and the effusive, fun-loving, enthusiastic Cage. Chance and Circumstance is an intimate chronicle of a crucial era in modern dance, and a revelation of the intersection of the worlds of art, music, dance, and theater that is Merce Cunningham’s extraordinary hallmark.

Essay by David Vaughan.

This text gathers writings by and about the choreographer, Merce Cunningham, tracing his career from 1944-1992. For nearly 60 years he challenged and provoked audiences by stripping theatrical dance of its traditional narrative.

James Klosty'sMerce Cunninghamwas the first book ever published about Cunningham. It appeared in 1975 and was republished in 1986. Now, for the 100th anniversary of Cunningham's birth, it is reincarnated for a twenty-first-century audience in duotone printing, redesignedand completely reimagined with an additional 140pages of photographs, many published never before. In the years since their passing, the historical importance of the partnership of John Cage and Merce Cunningham has grown to the point where no consideration of avant-garde art, music, and dance in America makes sense if Cunningham and Cage are not posited, serene and smiling, at the wellspring of its inspiration. This is true not only in America but around the globe as well. Art does not exist in a vacuum and neither did Cunningham and Cage. Painters such as Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, and Robert Morris, and composers such as Earle Brown, Christian Wolff, Morton Feldman, David Tudor, and Pauline Oliveros joined the endeavor. Jasper Johns slyly lured Marcel Duchamp into allowing his iconic Large Glass to be used as decor for a Cunningham dance. Cunningham repeatedly invited Erik Satie (without Satie's permission) into his musical family. This seemingly haphazard association of innovative artists served as the nearest thing America could offer in counterbalance to Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes. In addition to Klosty's photographs of the artists, composers, and dancers;and the dances themselves, both in rehearsal and performance; the book contains texts from Cunningham's associates including John Cage, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Carolyn Brown, Paul Taylor, Lincoln Kirstein, Edwin Denby, and a dozen others.

Known worldwide for his remarkable, groundbreaking choreography, Merce Cunningham has a secret: he also draws. For the first time he opens a door into his fantastical animal kingdom with Aperture's publication of Other Animals. Cunningham, an obsessive observer with a colossal sense of humor, revels in nature with the same childlike vision and expressiveness that infuses his dances. Like his dances, his drawings are impressions, inventions, gestures, and interactions. Cunningham introduces us to a bird riding a turtle, a bizarre hybrid creature wearing a fashionable sweater, and an ostrich that rivals the gracefulness of his dancers. The drawings are collected in a beautifully produced, colorful volume, with selected entries from Cunningham's journals and photographs of some of his dances and their notations. These drawings offer a key to understanding how Cunningham renders his vision of the world through dance--and how his vision is translated into costuming through his collaboration with designers such as Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçonnes.

Published in conjuction with exhibitions held at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, February 8-July 30, 2017, and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, February 11-April 30, 2017.