R.I.P. Merce Cunningham

The other day I saw the obit for the late great dancer-choreographer Merce Cunningham who died at age 90 and it took me back to two occasions when I met this unassuming yet brilliant artist. The first was in the early 1970s when he and his company were on a cultural exchange tour to Yugoslavia and several other countries. I still remember the performance in the Museum of Modern Art in Novi Beograd across the Sava River from the Yugoslav capital. This was my first tour with the U.S. Information Agency and I was amazed and impressed by the USG's sponsorship of such an avant garde performance. It certainly made a positive impact on the young Yugoslavs that I knew. The second meeting was when John Cage and Merce Cunningham combined their talents on a visit to Moscow a few years later. Because the people of the Soviet Union were more isolated than were the southern Slavs of the Balkan peninsula, this taste of Western decadence--atonal music and modern dance--stunned and delighted the Russian intelligentsia even more. It was an example of cultural diplomacy at its best at a time when we understood how important it was and were willing to invest in something that did not have an immediate return.