that single fleeting moment

Merce Cunningham passed away Sunday. Seems like this summer has been one of many losses, particularly in the world of dance- first with Pina Bausch and now Merce. It's strange to imagine existing and creating within this form during a time when more visionary artists like these will be gone. Come Paul Taylor, David Rousseve, Doug Varone... I suppose it's like anything else, while history seems to be made and marked by death and loss, it too sees its creation in the present as new work and choreographers present themselves today. I can only wonder what kind of dance history we'll be teaching decades from now, and what the worlds of dance and other art forms will look like. Whose work will withstand the test of time? What we will we come to value or appreciate about the arts- or will certain elements of the forms sustain themselves over time?

I guess it's just hard to think of an art form where revolutionaries like him are no longer, when I've grown up recognizing him, his work, and feeling inspired by them. It's one thing to read histories and biographies, to watch films and footage, but to see work of that caliber live, that's a whole other experience. It's visceral and intimate and alive. It's strange feeling a part of something so transitory and lacking permanence- which I suppose shouldn't feel so strange when our work is the same way. But it almost feels like certain voices and faces are meant to last forever- when you've only ever known them as deceased or existing in the past- their work being this piece of history, that's one thing. But making the transition from recognition of alive to deceased is something different.
...............

"You have to love dancing to stick to it. It gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you feel alive. It is not for unsteady souls."

-Merce Cunningham