Rest in Peace, David Gordon

[Helene]

Alastair Macaulay posted to his Instagram that David Gordon died in his sleep at age 85.  He posted a handful of wonderful photos, too:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CZZZlafAqLI/

[dirac]

So sorry to hear this. Obituary and appreciation by Wendy Perron for Dance Magazine.

Quote

A chance encounter in 1957 with James Waring (1922–1975), a choreographer/designer with a ballet vocabulary, led to Gordon’s first sustained exposure to dance. In Waring’s studio he met Valda Setterfield, a tall dancer who had just escaped from the constrictions of the London ballet world. Waring put them together in duets, and their 60-year legendary dance partnership began. That same summer he studied with Merce Cunningham and Louis Horst at the Connecticut College Summer School of Dance (aka American Dance Festival).

 

[miliosr]

It was brave of Baryshnikov to commission those two Gordon works - Field, Chair and Mountain (1984) and Murder (1986) - for ABT. They certainly delighted Arlene Croce but they died a heavy death with ABT's audience, which was already exasperated with Baryshnikov because of his "non-star turns" policies.

[miliosr]

Alastair Macaulay has published a long interview (more like a debriefing, actually) with David Gordon on his blog:

David Gordon (1936-2022) speaks of Merce Cunningham, James Waring, Valda Setterfield, Paul Taylor, Yvonne Rainer, Steve Paxton, and more — Alastair Macaulay