Crazy for Cunningham

When Robert Swinston brought his French company to New York City’s Joyce Theater last year, they were met with near euphoria. It had been more than three years since New Yorkers had seen a Merce Cunningham evening (Cunningham’s company ended its Legacy Tour in 2011), and the young French dancers of Compagnie CNDC-Angers/Robert Swinston bristled with the alertness that makes the master’s choreography so bracing. From April 4–9, Swinston returns to The Joyce with three Cunningham favorites: Place (1966), which ends with a famously thrashing solo in a long plastic bag; the delightful How to Pass, Kick, Fall and Run (1965), danced to a series of John Cage’s Zen anecdotes read aloud; and the peaceful Inlets 2 (1983), with watery sounds by Cage. joyce.org.