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Books > Arts & Architecture > Performing arts > Dance > General
Carolyn Brown, one of the most renowned dancers of the last
half-century, lived at the center of New York's bold and vibrant
artistic community, which included not only dancers and
choreographers but composers and painters as well. Brown's memoir
recounts her own remarkable twenty-year tenure with the Merce
Cunningham Dance Company and provides a first-hand account of a
pivotal period in twentieth-century art. From the 1950s to the
1970s, Brown developed close relationships with musical director
John Cage and set-designer Robert Rauschenberg and with Cunningham
himself. Brown's memoir reveals the personal dynamics between the
reserved and moody Cunningham and the playful and ebullient Cage,
as well as the controversial yet undeniably brilliant creativity
that resulted when the two collaborated. Brown relates the
company's rise from its cash-strapped early years when the group
traveled by VW bus to perform in small venues to the 1964 world
tour that left the group exhausted but finally brought them
large-scale acclaim. A unique chronicle of the avant-garde's
struggle for acceptance, Brown's memoir provides a riveting
first-hand account of a little-documented era in modern dance that
nonetheless had a tremendous impact on the course of art in the
twentieth century.
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