Bill T. Jones, Lucinda Childs to celebrate Merce Cunningham at River To River Festival

As part of The River To River Festival, the dance community's leading lights will celebrate the extraordinary life of Merce Cunningham in a free outdoor performance on July 26th in New York, the city in which he worked and lived for 70 years.

Work by acclaimed choreographers Lucinda Childs, Bill T. Jones, Susan Marshall, Jon Kinzel, and Faye Driscoll and musicians David Eggar, Geoff Gersh, and Kotchy will be presented in "We Give Ourselves Away at Every Moment: An EVENT for Merce," according to Robin Schatell, executive director of the River To River Festival. The performance will take place alongside the Hudson River at the Esplanade Plaza in Battery Park City.

The tribute coincides with the first anniversary of Cunningham's death and the performance of his final work as part of the 2009 River to River Festival. The site-specific event drew over three thousand people to Rockefeller Park in Lower Manhattan on August 1st and 2nd, 2009.

The River To River Festival is New York's largest free summer arts festival, drawing hundreds of thousands of people each year to venues throughout Lower Manhattan. Co-presented by Arts World Financial Center and the Battery Park City Authority, the event is curated and produced by choreographer Annie-B Parson, co-founder of the Bessie Award-winning company Big Dance Theater, and William Knapp.

The production will include new dances created especially for the occasion, embodying Cunningham's spirit of rigorous play and taking on some of his favorite challenges, such as in-the-round staging and live musical accompaniment created according to John Cage's principles of chance composition. The choreographers will also present pre-existing work in the mode of Cunningham's trademark Events, in which the choreographer repurposed pieces from his repertoire for specific performances.

"Even those of us who had no direct relationship to his work profited from Merce's experiments, and his breakthrough ideas of 50 years ago are now in the drinking water here in New York City, where we all have absorbed his ideas around abstraction and sequencing and music," said Parson. "Rather than speeches or prayers, we use his structures to remember him on this day. We try them on our work, just for a day, as a way to remember the father of postmodernism."

"The waterfront in Battery Park City is the perfect setting for this special celebration of Merce Cunningham's life and work," said Sidney Druckman, Director, Special Projects, Battery Park City Authority. "We share his commitment to pushing boundaries, exploring ideas, and reaching new audiences."

"Merce Cunningham left an indelible mark on the dance world, and his influence will be felt forever," said Debra Simon, Artistic Director of Arts World Financial Center. "We're honored to be collaborating with these five extraordinary choreographers in paying tribute to one of New York's greatest artists."

For more information and a complete schedule of River To River Festival programming, please visit
www.RiverToRiverNYC.com.

About River to River Festival
The River To River Festival is a collaboration of Lower Manhattan's major cultural event producers including the Alliance for Downtown New York, Arts World Financial Center, Battery Park City Authority, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and The Seaport. Co-presenters for the 2010 season are The Joyce Theater and IMG Artists. All partners are firmly committed to using the arts as a tool for economic revitalization and the development of new audiences for the arts.

Free admission to River To River® events is underwritten by a wide range of funders led by the Festival's Founding Sponsor, American Express.

Major support is provided by the Festival's Producing Partners, including NBC Local Media New York and WNYC New York Public Radio. Vital support comes from our Supporting Funders, including Century 21 Department Stores, EmblemHealth, JetBlue Airways, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Target, and The Village Voice. Participating Funders are CB Richard Ellis, The Moody's Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, New York Marriott Downtown, New York State Council on the Arts, New York Stock Exchange Foundation, Pace University, and TKTS Seaport.

About Battery Park City Authority
The Hugh L. Carey Battery Park City Authority is a New York State public benefit corporation whose mission is to plan, create, coordinate and maintain a balanced community of commercial, residential, retail and park space within its designated 92-acre site on the lower west side of Manhattan.

About Arts World Financial Center
Now in its 22nd season, Arts World Financial Center is the East Coast's largest presenter of free, year-round performing and visual arts. A leading showcase for visual and performing arts, the organization makes the artistic process accessible in a free, open and interactive manner to workers, residents and the broader public of cultural consumers.

Photo credit: Monica Simoes