"Montgomery Fellows are chosen on the basis of their achievements and their potential to enrich students' educational experiences," said Susan Wright, the executive director of the Montgomery Endowment. "Cunningham is one of the greatest dance choreographers of our time -- he has a wide impact in the arts."
Cunningham was nominated for the fellowship by Hop Director Jeffrey James, who was the executive director of Cunningham's dance company two years ago.
Traditionally, one fellow is chosen each term, but this fall there are three. In addition to Cunningham, former president of Ireland Mary Robinson and Nobel Laureate chemist Thomas Cech were also awarded fellowships.
"[A fellow] should be a person who has an interdisciplinary impact," Wright said. "It does not necessarily have to be an academic. The fellowship program seeks people who are drawn from a wide range of fields and breadth of experience."
Cunningham's visit will climax with his Montgomery Fellow lecture Wednesday night at 7 p.m. in the Moore Theater and his troupe's performances on Friday and Saturday.
The lecture will feature a discussion between Cunningham and Laura Kuhn, director of the John Cage Trust, an organization that handles the estate of American composer John Cage.
The Merce Cunningham Dance Company and the John Cage Trust are "sibling organizations," as described by Kuhn. Cunningham and Kuhn also have a personal relationship because of their connections to Cage.
"Merce and John were partners for 50 years," Kuhn said. "Merce is also the president of the Board of Trustees for the John Cage Trust."
The discussion will focus on Cunningham's performing experiences. Though Cunningham no longer dances, he started his career as a performer and continues to take on roles in theater.
"I'm interested in talking to him a little bit about what carries over between art forms when he's performing," Kuhn said.
Kuhn expressed particular interest in learning how Cunningham transitions between dance and theater. Cunningham, in response, said he is looking forward to the lecture as "a chance to talk with Laura Kuhn."
Cunningham's dance company will perform a three-piece production featuring his works "XOVER," "Crises" and "eyeSpace." The pieces, each created during different stages of Cunningham's career, present to audiences slices of his work that spans more than 50 years.
The oldest piece in the trio, "Crises," was created in the 1960s and features music by Conlon Montarro, according to the company's special projects director, Abi Sabaly. First choreographed in 2006, "eyeSpace" is an interactive piece. Audience members are loaned iPod shuffles that each contain 10 tracks created by composer Mikel Rouse.
"At a certain point of the production, audience members will be instructed to turn on the iPods," Sabaly said. "They can then flip through their tracks at their own will."
This interactive experience highlights Cunningham's style of preserving independence between music and dance.
"Ordinarily, choreographers have a piece of music to which they choreograph or to which they work," Cunningham explained. "But I work without music when we are making the dance and then we add the music when we do the final rehearsals. The music does not in the conventional sense support the dance. It is an independent element as the dance is and as the dcor is, but they are brought together at the time of performance."
Perhaps the most anticipated performance during Cunningham's visit is "XOVER," which will make its world premier in Hanover. The brand-new work features a series of duets, trios and small groups and reflects Cunningham's "continued exploration of the complexities between bodies and space," Sabaly said.
A centerpiece of the "XOVER" production is Cunningham's collaboration with visual artist Robert Rauschenberg.
"[Rauschenberg's] imagination is always opening up something we hadn't seen before," Cunningham said.
Cunningham admits that his choreographic style is "exotic" and encourages open-mindedness in his viewers.
"Don't think it's right or wrong because it doesn't look like something else," he said, "but look at and listen to what it is."
Other upcoming features of Cunningham's residency at the College include a pre-performance panel discussion on Friday and a temporary art exhibition at the Hood Museum. The exhibition, "Merce Cunningham Dance Company: The Paper Trail," will be on display until Nov. 4 and will showcase posters from past tours, Cunningham's original notes on "Crises," the model for the set design of "eyeSpace" by Henry Samelson, a film of Cunningham's original 1960 performance in "Crises" and one of John Cage's scores.
