The diversity that each of these dancers showed in just 50 minutes was more than most dancers show in a lifetime.
The New York Times
On December 29, 30 and 31, 2011, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company returned to New York City—its home since it was founded in 1953—to present six valedictory performances at Park Avenue Armory before disbanding. Performed across three stages spanning the Armory's soaring drill hall, Park Avenue Armory Event marked the conclusion of the Company's Legacy Tour and the culmination of nearly
60 years of cross-disciplinary innovation.
Throughout its history, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company mounted over 800 of these signature site-specific Events in unusual locations around the world. Events, as Merce Cunningham described them, "consist of complete dances, excerpts of dances from the repertory, and often new sequences for the particular performance and place, with the possibility of several separate activities happening at the same time to allow not so much an evening of dance as the experience
of dance."
This three-DVD set was designed to give viewers the opportunity to create their own— and complete—experience to witness MCDC's historic final performances. For the first time, the beautifully edited film of Park Avenue Armory Event (disc 1) is paired with uncut captures from each of the three stages, showing the full performance from every perspective, along with notes detailing the dances performed (disc two). As an added bonus, illustrating the full spectrum of Cunningham's artistic legacy, disc 3 includes recent and archival excerpts from each of
the repertory works featured on the Legacy Tour. Accompanying the release is an
illustrated essay by noted curator and
critic Douglas Crimp.
DISC 1 – PARK AVENUE ARMORY EVENT
Total Running Time: 52:30
DISC 2 – UNCUT SINGLE-STAGE CAPTURES
Total Running Time: 2:16:45
DISC 3 – BONUS LEGACY TOUR
REPERTORY EXCERPTS
Total Running Time: 1:29:30