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Podcast: New Books in Performing Arts
Episode: Carrie Noland, "Merce Cunningham: After the Arbitrary" (U Chicago Press, 2020)
Description: Carrie Noland's Merce Cunningham: After the Arbitrary (University of Chicago Press, 2020) goes past conventional understandings of Cunningham that insist that randomness was his central goal as a choreographer, instead providing a portrait of a choreographer interested in story, connection, and affect. For Noland, chance is a starting point in understanding Cunningham, not a final destination. His chance operations were always shaped and modified by a keen choreographic and theatrical eye. Chapters explore his relation to many other artists and thinkers, including John Cage, Marcel Duchamp, Robert Rauschenberg, James Joyce, and Bill T. Jones.Andy Boyd is a pla...