For Immediate Release ELLENEllen Jacobs JACOBS Associates ASSOCIATES611 Broadway Suite 504 New York, NY 10012 USA T: 212.245.5100 [email protected] www.ejassociates.org OUT OF THE BOX PERFORMANCES STEPHANIE BERGER’S BOOK OF PHOTOGRAPHS “MERCE CUNNINGHAM: BEYOND THE PERFECT STAGE” RELEASED BY DAMIANI PRESS When is a book not only a book? In the hands of performing arts photographer Stephanie Berger and designer Yolanda Cuomo, “Merce Cunningham: Beyond the Perfect Stage” the recently released book-within-a-box that becomes a literally out-of-the-box performance. Shot in vivid color, “Beyond the Perfect Stage” celebrates the final landmark performances of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in the New York area: a series of performances of “Events” (2007-2009) at Dia:Beacon in Beacon, NY and the conclusion of the Company’s performing life at the Park Avenue Armory. The 96-page book itself is enclosed in a playfully designed box whose panel-by-panel opening becomes the curtain raiser for the performance within. MORE ADD ONE With each page visually connected to its past and future photograph, the images move like a dancer though space. By honoring Cunningham’s legacy through her unerring determination of a telling moment, consider Berger the choreographer; and with her astute and witty use of color and design that rhythmically guides the eye from page to page, consider Cuomo the lighting and set designer. Together they join the images giving the vitality and genius of Cunningham a new, bright and unexpected life. While Merce Cunningham and his dancers have, over the years, been subjects of multiple books and photo essays, “Merce Cunningham: Beyond the Perfect Stage” is focused on the final years of the Company. Cunningham had decreed that his troupe be dissolved two years after his death. The photographs taken at Dia:Beacon were shot while the choreographer was still alive, and the ones at the Park Avenue Armory, were taken at the conclusion of the troupe’s landmark international tour, two years after Cunningham’s death on July 25, 2009. All the photographs in “Beyond the Perfect Stage” are of Cunningham’s “Events,” which are site- specific dances, a form the choreographer invented in 1964. An “Event” is comprised of sequences from past and present works arranged to accommodate the unique space in which it is being performed. Each “Event” is original. Shooting in available light, Berger photographed the Cunningham Company through various seasons at Beacon, a 300,000 square foot, former Nabisco box printing factory. At times, creating arcs or angles, at times, nestling against or cascading across the dancers’ bodies, the natural illumination, affected by the time of year and the gallery in which the work was performed, is integral to the drama of the dance. The changing light streaming through Beacon’s over-sized windows and the large, abstract, vividly colorful works in its galleries serve as ever-changing decor for each photograph, infusing the choreography with a new, unanticipated beauty. Like her photographs of the Dia Events, Berger’s shots of the individual dancers and ensemble, taken during the company’s concluding performances in the Armory’s vast Wade Thompson Drill Hall, December 29, 30 and 31, 2011, embody the paradoxes of Cunningham’s choreography: MORE ADD TWO sensuality and purity, complexity and simplicity, speed and stillness, dramatic wit and suspense- filled solemnity. Berger’s eye captures the streams of light illuminating Daniel Arsham’s magical, cloud-like décor hovering above, and moves among the dancers simultaneously performing within three spaces, defined by rows of glowing ground lights. The radiant afterglow of these now-legendary evenings are immortalized through Berger’s generous vision. The Afterword is by writer and dance critic Nancy Dalva, and the Coda is by the Cunningham Company’s former Executive Director Trevor Carlson. “Merce Cunningham: Beyond the Perfect Stage” is available at local bookstores, Amazon.com, ARTBOOK.com/D.A.P. There is also a limited edition of the book, which comes with a signed and numbered photograph. ARTIST BACKGROUNDS: STEPHANIE BERGER Stephanie Berger has been photographing performance and cultural events for over twenty-five years for many major cultural centers and venues such as Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Carnegie Hall, Park Avenue Armory, Met Museum, Dia Art Foundation, Baryshnikov Arts Center and The Kitchen. Her photographs have appeared regularly covering the arts, music, dance, new opera, jazz and social events in a wide range of publications, including The New York Times, Artforum, Wall Street Journal as well as international publications and book projects. She has been the staff photographer for the Lincoln Center Festival since its inception in 1996. MORE ADD THREE Berger has been commissioned by many top dance companies, choreographers, theater companies and musicians including: Merce Cunningham, Mark Morris, Trisha Brown, Bill T. Jones, Robert Wilson, Bang On A Can and Young People’s Chorus. She works regularly for PBS photographing many of their hosts and casts for programs such as Ken Burns, Downton Abbey, Charlie Rose, History Detectives, and PBS Arts Festival. Her photographs of dancers were the scenic décor for the Off-Broadway show, “River Deep” about Tina Turner at Playwrights Horizon directed by Gabrielle Lansner. She has exhibited collections of her photographs in galleries and public art spaces including solo exhibits at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, The New York State Theater Gallery, The Walter Reade Gallery at the Film Society, John Jay College Gallery, Curtis Gallery at New Canaan Public Library and numerous group exhibits, including Lower Manhattan Cultural Center and ARTSWestchester. Her outdoor photo installation, “Dancing in the Streets,” curated by Aperture’s Melissa Harris and Designer, Yolanda Cuomo, was a featured exhibition at the LOOK3 Photo Festival in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2013. Berger graduated from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and studied photography at Hampshire College with Jerome Liebling. She worked as a photographer for the City of New York’s Department of Transportation in the 1980’s climbing to the tops of bridges to document New York City’s infrastructure and public works. Many of these photographs were displayed throughout the New York City subway system. She is also a member of the 52nd Street Project. “Merce Cunningham: Beyond the Perfect Stage” is her first book. Upcoming exhibits include the Pitts River Museum at Oxford University in June, 2016. YOLANDA CUOMO Yolanda Cuomo is a designer, art director, and educator with more than 30 years of experience collaborating with artists ranging from Richard Avedon, Laurie Simmons, Gilles Peress, Sylvia Plachy and Peter van Agtmael to Paul Simon, Twyla Tharp and Laurie Anderson. Cuomo and her studio, Yolanda Cuomo Design, were profiled in 2013 by the New Yorker’s Photo Booth with a short film called “Let’s Make a Book of This: Studio Visit with Yolanda Cuomo” and in “Profile of a Curatorial Master: Yolanda Cuomo” on Time Magazine’s Lightbox. Time’s profile noted that, “Yo (as all her friends and colleagues call her) has helped envision and produce some of the most striking and influential art and photography books of the past two decades, including Diane Arbus’ Revelations, Gilles Peress’ Farewell to Bosnia, Pre-Pop Warhol and scores of other titles.” Other notable book projects include Diane Arbus’ Untitled and A Chronology, Peter van Agtmael’s Disco Night 9/11, The Library of Jullio Santo Domingo, Andrew Moore’s Detroit Disassembled, Richard Avedon: Performance, Avedon Fashion: 1944-2000, September 11 by Magnum Photographers, Here is New York: A Democracy of Photographs, Malaparte: A House Like Me, and Sylvia Plachy’s Unguided MORE ADD FOUR Tour. In addition to book and exhibition projects, Cuomo designed Paul Simon’s double-platinum record “The Rhythm of the Saints”; Laurie Anderson’s “Bright Red” and “The Ugly One With the Jewels”; and numerous books and posters for Twyla Tharp Dance. Cuomo has designed more than 30 issues of Aperture Magazine, earning the 2004 National Magazine Award for General Excellence from The American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME). She received Infinity Awards in the best publication category in 1991 and 2004; and for design in 1995, from the International Center of Photography. Cuomo is on the Board of Directors of the LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph, which she co- curated with Melissa Harris in 2013. She received her BFA from The Cooper Union in 1980 and has previously taught at the School of Visual Arts and Parsons School of Design. Cuomo has been adjunct faculty at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts since 1996. ### 05162016 All photos by Stephanie Berger.