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On the occasion of his 90th birthday, Merce Cunningham
premiered his newest dance, Nearly Ninety, at the Brooklyn
Academy of Music. Nearly Ninety was a ninety-minute work
for thirteen dancers. The music was composed and performed by Takehisa
Kosugi, John Paul Jones, and Sonic Youth. The design collaborators included
Romeo Gigli, Benedetta Tagliabue, Franc Lieu, and Brian MacDevitt.
Silas Riener (2007-2011) shares memories of the event:
I think on many levels, Merce knew Nearly Ninety was
his last dance, and he was giving us parting gifts. He and I worked on
a spritely and sharp solo, quick steps, all with bent knees. I
remember feeling strange with so much focus on metric exactitude in the
company and this solo had no rhythm of its own; he encouraged me to be
uneven with the timing. I was terrified I would forget some part of
it; we pushed it together all in about an hour. He rummaged through the
notes on his desk and said, “I feel like an accountant with all these
papers.”
The musicians performed on Benadetta Tagliabue’s huge,
occasionally rotating set, with a balcony platform that came down and all
these Swarovski crystal panels. I remember Kim Gordon getting physical and
athletic, drawing a contact mic all over her body really fast, the feedback
from it spiking hard through the music. I remember John Paul Jones had
the coolest looking in-ear audio thingies I had ever seen.
There was so much stimulation. At the rehearsal the day
before the premiere, Merce told us, “Don’t worry about it. It’s like
there’s a basketball game going on behind you, but you’re not paying
attention to it.” On stage during the bows, Audra Macdonald sang Happy
Birthday to Merce in his midnight velvet suit.
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