International Arts News: Money From Merce Cunningham Trust Goes to Two Arts Groups - New York Times (05-01-2015) artsbeat.blogs.nytimes/2015/01/05/money-from-merce-cunningham-trust-goes-to-two-arts-groups/?_r=0 By ROSLYN SULCAS The Merce Cunningham Trust, established in 2000 to further the choreographer’s legacy, has announced an award of $250,000 to the Baryshnikov Arts Center and of $375,000 to the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. Both organizations, said Allan Sperling, a trustee, were crucial to Cunningham, who died in 2009. “The Foundation for Contemporary Arts, founded by John Cage and Jasper Johns, provided vital support over the years to Merce, and so did Misha, performing his work and assisting through fund-raising,” Mr. Sperling said in a telephone interview, referring to Mikhail Baryshnikov, who heads the Baryshnikov Arts Center. Mr. Sperling said that this was the first time the trust had awarded cash grants, and that it was unlikely to happen again. “The mission of the trust is to support Merce’s work, and our central activities are to actively support the licensing of the work and to encourage the teaching of his technique,” he said. “With these awards, we have not specified any criteria, which is very different from anything we’ve done before.” The Baryshnikov Arts Center has been raising funds to establish a Cage-Cunningham fellowship, and will also rename its largest rehearsal space the John Cage and Merce Cunningham Studio. In an email, Mr. Baryshnikov said that he was extremely grateful for the award. “We never imagined when we set our 1 million dollar goal for the Cage Cunningham Campaign that a sister institution would provide a gift of this size and therefore advance us so assertively towards reaching our goal,” he wrote. “It is this trust in our vision for advancing the next generation of rigorous artistic rule-breakers and innovators, in the names of Cunningham and Cage, that truly humbles me.” The Foundation for Contemporary Arts will use to grant to establish a biennial Merce Cunningham Award. Mr. Johns said in an emailed statement that the first recipient will be the choreographer Yvonne Rainer. “It gives me pleasure to remember, long ago, seeing Yvonne dancing with a ball in Merce’s old 14th Street studio,” he wrote. Correction: January 7, 2015 A report in the “Arts, Briefly” column on Tuesday about two grants awarded by the Merce Cunningham Trust misstated the year the trust was founded. It was 2000, not 1990.
Posted on: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 03:45:27 +0000
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