Dance legend recounts his onstage life

Kate Coster / The Dartmouth Staff Under the dim lights of Moore Theater, artistic legend Merce Cunningham provided an intimate glimpse into his life and work Wednesday night, in the program "In Conversation with Merce Cunningham." Cunningham, 88, a former dancer who has choreographed nearly 200 works for his dance company since 1953, recounted the whole of his artistic experience, from his earliest education to the present. Cunningham began his study at the Cornish School in Seattle, where, he said, he was exposed to all areas of the arts: dance, painting, sculpture and theater. "It was a remarkable education in contemporary art," he said, referring both to his training in dance as well as his early work in the theater. Cunningham said throughout his training he was driven by a desire to perform. "It was something I really wanted," Cunningham explained.

Arabic dept. upgrades its foreign study prog.

Courtesy of Alex Chan 10 Students looking for second-year courses in Arabic will be out of luck until next fall as the Arabic and Middle Eastern languages and literature department upgrades its curriculum.

'Chance Operations' will shape Cunningham's 'XOVER'

Courtesy of Ballet Dance Magazine / The Dartmouth Staff Without even a bit of dance knowledge under my belt, I came to believe in the Merce Cunningham experience. Typical of Cunningham, rather than returning to a celebration of his past works for the seminal 50th anniversary of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, he continued on his ceaselessly inventive departure from his experience in traditional dance into a world of glorious experimentation with the most current in a string of innovative collaborators -- Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg are noteworthy past examples. Yet as complicated as his work remains, Cunningham proved that even the most inexperienced audience members could be given a chance to act as participants in the translation of his richly conceived work. To call Cunningham simply a choreographer doesn't do him justice; his work blurs the boundaries between dance, art and music, and makes a commentary on all three. In a way, it is appropriate that I was originally attracted to Cunningham's work through the music rather than any other facet. And the notion of chance is what Cunningham's work is about -- "Chance Operations," to be specific, a term that Cunningham himself branded with his lifelong collaborator and companion John Cage to serve as a formula for the Cunningham experience. Their famed method relies on the completely isolated production of all three forms of music, art, and dance in order for a natural, spontaneous explosion of creativity to occur on stage before the audience's eyes. Each night, a roll of the dice will determine which of the two compositions will go first.

Rugby takes Granite Cup, hunts for Northeast Union title

Teresa Lattanzio / The Dartmouth Staff The Dartmouth Rugby Football Club, one of the school's most successful club sports programs, has begun its fall campaign with mixed results.

Founded in 1937, camera shop closes doors

Famed dance choreographer in residence for fellowship