Must See!: Dance Works III at Walker Art Museum

Fact:  Comme des Garcon was a costume designer for Mercer Cunningham. 

Original "Scenario poster"

Rei Kawakubo was commissioned by world renowned dance choreographer Mercer Cunningham to create the costumes for his production entitled Scenario. This was a collaboration that inspired Kawakubo’s 97 collections. Over the last decade The Walker Art Museum in Minneapolis, Minnesota have worked with Mercer Cunningham and after his death in 2009 his estate/dance company entrusted the costumes to the museum. The collection boasts all of the choreographer’s costumes and sets. The Walker Art Museum  has been curating a series highlighting and investigating the importance of Cunningham’s interdisciplinary work. He worked with Rei Kawakubo but also Rauschenberg, John Cage, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, and Roy Lichtenstein,  Ernesto Neto, Charles Long, and Daniel Arsham to create contemporary- well rounded-masterpieces.

Dancer's performing "Scenario"

Scenario presses the necessary discussion of shape, line, movement and contraint. The costumes are not necesarily condusive to free movement and the choreography takes advantage of that. Despite the obvious contraint several dancers who participated in the 1997 performance describe their experience as freeing and liberating [citation]. The dancers wore striped-and-gingham unitards with bulbous blobs that mimic the literary character the harlequin in the most absurdest fashion. Here a few photos of the same dance featuring Kawakubo’s designs.

Japanese poster for Cunningham's Scenario

Link to the exhibition:
http://www.walkerart.org/calendar/2012/dance-works-iii-merce-cunningham-rei-kawakubo