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Soon after the tragic events of September 11, 2001, a former Merce Cunningham Dance Company member and continuing faculty member, Patricia Lent, contacted the Studio. As a third grade teacher at P.S. 243, located four blocks from the World Trade Center, she and her class had escaped injury that day, and had subsequently been relocated to P.S. 41, located near the Cunningham Studio. However, with sixty children per classroom, she was planning activities that would reduce the crowding, and asked if she might bring her 25 or so students to the Studio to watch a Company rehearsal of Merce’s work.
The children were captivated by the event, and responded with letters, pictures and summaries of their observations and feelings while watching the rehearsal. Subsequent visits were planned, and the children were able to see a number of dances and observe the environment of a professional dance company. They learned more about the work of Merce Cunningham, and began to notice specific aspects of the dancing and to relate what they saw to their own experiences in dance and performance.
In the five years since that time, this program has continued to grow. Students from a number of schools in New York City or its vicinity have visited the Studio and/or been visited by our faculty. They have learned about Merce and the Company in their classrooms, have visited the Studio and have often followed these activities up with a summary of these experiences, and in some cases, have incorporated them into their ongoing curricula.
This Outreach program started as a response to a tragedy in our immediate community, but we hope that it will grow into one which will do what the arts do best: communicate, educate, and inspire.
Other arrangements are possible,
but a typical program is as follows:
• Teachers bring students, grades 1–12,
• to visit the Merce Cunningham Studio free of charge.
• Students observe a class in progress.
• Students participate in a 30-minute movement
• session in our large studio.
• The Cunningham Repertory Group does a short (15-minute)
• performance followed by a Q&A session.
Please contact Mary Lisa Burns, Director of Education, at
if you are interested or would like more information. |
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