Lament of a Dance Fan

My day job is in a bookstore. One phenomenon you can count on is that when a famous person dies, You'll be asked for books by or about that person. Not a lot, not enough to put a book on the best seller list, but a few. Even the books about Michael Jackson haven't done all that well. Better than most, perhaps, but not outrageously well (to the disappointment of the buyers who decided we all need mountains of some books). When E. Lynn Harris died, his books, especially his latest (last?) novel, Basketball Jones. Walter Conkrite's memoir picked up in sales. Again, these are small jumps in sales, but there is acknowledgment of someone passing. I think part of being American is mourning famous people through books and magazines. (Or, if not mourning, living vicariously the crazy media circus a celebrity death can be.)

This past summer, as I was at the American Dance Festival, it was impressed upon us how precarious is the existence (i.e., the funding) of the arts in general and of dance in particular. This left me in a funk for some weeks afterward.

A couple of months ago, I read a review of a new book of photography by Mikhail Baryshnikov, Merce My Way. Working in a bookstore, I ordered in two copies. It is a lovely book, really. The photos are of the Cunningham company in motion. These are not the photos of someone like Lois Greenfield, with her stunning, crisp moments captured in mid-air. Baryshnikov's clarity comes not in the focus but in the blur. He captures a path the dancers travel. So, you can't see every detail of the dancer's face or body. You do see every detail of how they're moving.

Over a month ago, when Merce died, I put those two copies on display, hoping that someone will see them, want to mourn Merce with these photos. A major, giant of a dancer and choreographer had just died and I thought surely someone would come in asking about books on him. Some one.

But it hasn't happened. And the books sit on a display. They'll probably be returned to the warehouse soon.

I'm not sure what I want to say about this. Maybe I just want to say it. Maybe I've said enough.

Merce

While I was in Durham, the world lost a dance innovator, Pina Bausch. I'd only seen one live performance of her company and various YouTube videos, but her death was sad in that she wasn't very old. She was not yet 60 years old and it happened suddenly, unexpectedly. I often say that I reserve my grieving for people I actually know, but it's hard not to feel sadness at her passing.

Of course, many people have been discussing the death of Michael Jackson. I might still have a Michael Jackson post in me somewhere. He was a part of my high school and college experience and there's some sadness at his untimely death, maybe even more sadness at his unfortunate life. But as far as his dancing is concerned, Joan Acocella has written much of what I thought about MJ and his dancing, so I needn't repeat it here. (I'm not entirely comfortable writing about MJ in the same post as Pina Bausch and Merce Cunningham---these are entirely separate worlds.)

Today the dance world is taking in the news that Merce Cunningham has died. Some are mourning, yes. His company and the countless dancers who passed through it are doubtlessly more affected by his death than most. But I say "taking in the news" instead of "mourning" for a very particular reason.

Merce was 90 years old. He found his path and followed it with great success. He had a partner in life and collaboration in John Cage. He was innovating, using computers to help choreograph when he could no longer stand on arthritic feet. From what has been said of him, I would expect he went to sleep last night with some new idea floating in his head, some new dance that we'll never see.

And there is the sadness, I suppose. The flow of creativity and curiousity is stopped.

But for finite people, Merce had an incredibly good run (full, no doubt, of hardship and sadness of his own---one does not create the body of work he leaves without hardship and sadness).

So, for someone like me, who never met the man, who experienced him mostly through books and video, I merely take in the news that he has died. Merce Cunningham is canon, pantheon, legend. He is as alive to me today as he was yesterday.

Blessings on his memory.