Merce Cunningham’s choreography remains timeless, a vision that still feels
boldly ahead of its time.
There’s something surreal about watching work created decades ago and realising it still feels more modern than half of what’s being made today. That’s what struck me most during this evening of Merce Cunningham’s choreography—his work doesn’t age; it recalibrates time. Presented as part of the Dance Reflections Festival, Lyon Opera Ballet boldly paired two of Cunningham’s major works: Beach Birds and BIPED.
Beach Birds opens in near silence. The dancers—dressed in white and black, like a minimalist flock—move with a kind of quiet insistence. The pacing is slow, methodical, and yes, uncomfortable. Not in a bad way, but in a way that demands your patience, drawing you into its world inch by inch. It’s a length that almost presses in on you, creating something intimate and a little claustrophobic, as if you’ve wandered into a tide pool and can’t quite find your way out.
But it also has a strange peacefulness—like watching birds preen and shift at the water’s edge. The dancers don’t mimic birds exactly, but they suggest them: the angles of the arms, the tilts of heads, and the way gestures ripple through the group. What held me wasn’t the drama of any narrative—there isn’t one—but the way repetition became hypnotic. Time feels less linear, more like a gentle circle being drawn again and again. Then comes BIPED, and the shift is immediate. Gone is the natural stillness of the beach. We are thrust into something sharper, colder. Grids of light slice the stage, a sort of shimmering cage that both contains and transforms the dancers. Ghostly digital figures flicker and glide across the backdrop, mirroring the live performers, or maybe challenging them. It’s hard to tell.
This is where Cunningham’s genius really hit me. BIPED premiered in the late ’90s, but it feels eerily aligned with the digital present. There’s a tension between body and technology, between freedom and structure, that couldn’t feel more current. The choreography isn’t softened to make room for emotion; it’s structured, complex, and sometimes even mechanical. And yet, through that, something deeply human emerges.
The juxtaposition of these two works—one evoking the quiet rhythms of nature, the other the fractured speed of the digital age—felt deliberate and powerful. Together, they trace a kind of evolution, or perhaps a warning: from organic to artificial, from earth to code.
For someone who began choreographing in the mid-20th century, Merce Cunningham remains startlingly contemporary. His refusal to follow conventional structures, his use of chance, and his collaborations with technology all feel like they belong in the now. Or maybe even in the future.
As I left the theatre, I wasn’t thinking about nostalgia. I was thinking about how rare it is to encounter an artist whose work can still ask new questions decades after it was made. Cunningham may no longer be with us, but his choreography continues to move forward—restless, relentless,
and forever modern.