Sommarrymd (Summer Space)

In Merce Cunningham’s Summer Space, dancers explore the room wearing specially painted full-body unitards. They make their way across the floor in different patterns, throwing themselves across the space and jumping through the air. They move in alternate patterns alone, in tandem, or as an ensemble. The dance conveys the feeling of movement in space, in this case a bright summer space. The work is an example of Cunningham’s method at the time, whereby the choreography was created independently of Morton Feldman’s music and Robert Rauschenberg’s scenography,. The work premiered at the American Dance Festival in the summer of 1958 and had its Cullberg premiere in 1967.