Spectrum Dance Theater made a perfect choice when it added Merce Cunningham to this “Icono-Clan” program. The 90-year-old choreographer has been breaking rules since the beginning of his career, as a student at what was then the Cornish School. An early and fervent convert to chance operations and the chaos we find in the natural world, his radical movement and staging choices perplexedand eventually enchantedaudiences around the world. More than any other artist, Cunningham opened our eyes to the vast possibilities of movement in time and space. Spectrum will perform his Landrover, from 1972, the beginning of the dance boom in the U.S., and a prolific period in Cunninghams development. Works by Gus Solomons, Jr., who danced with Cunningham before striking out on his own as a dance maker, and Spectrum director Donald Byrd, who did the same with Solomons troupe, fill out the bill, like a family tree of outliers. SANDRA KURTZ
Sat., April 25, 7 p.m.; Sun., April 26, 5 p.m., 2009
