Merce Cunningham Quotes & Sayings

I think of dance as a constant transformation of life itself. — Merce Cunningham

Falling is one of the ways of moving. — Merce Cunningham

Anything can feed you, depending on the way you look at it. — Merce Cunningham

There's no thinking involved in my choreography ... I don't work through images or ideas. I work through the body ... If the dancer dances, which is not the same as having theories about dancing or wishing to dance or trying to dance, everything is there. When I dance, it means: this is what I am doing. — Merce Cunningham

Dancing is a spiritual exercise in a physical form. — Merce Cunningham

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.
— Merce Cunningham

The most essential thing in dance discipline is devotion, the steadfast and willing devotion to the labor that makes the classwork not a gymnastic hour and a half, or at the lowest level, a daily drudgery, but a devotion that allows the classroom discipline to become moments of dancing too ... — Merce Cunningham

There are no fixed points in space, — Merce Cunningham

My dance classes were open to anybody, my only stipulation was that they had to come to the class every day. — Merce Cunningham

I'm not expressing anything. I'm presenting people moving. — Merce Cunningham

I was told that I had to give grades to the students, which I wasn't particularly interested in doing. — Merce Cunningham

The only way to do it is to do it. — Merce Cunningham

Light or luminosity is created by the way elements are juxtaposed. They become reflective and a radiance comes from putting different things together. — Merce Cunningham