Merce Cunningham

Born in Centralia, Washington, Merce Cunningham was a pioneering force in 20th-century avant-garde dance. His collaborations with equally iconoclastic figures like composer John Cage and artist Robert Rauschenberg cemented his reputation as a visionary, even if his works occasionally left audiences wondering if they'd accidentally wandered into an interpretive dance class at a particularly experimental community college.

Cunningham’s innovative approach to choreography, emphasizing chance procedures and a radical independence between dance, music, and décor, liberated dance from traditional narratives and strict musical structures. He pretty much told everyone else to sit down and take notes while he reinvented the entire art form, often making it look like people were just flailing around, but, you know, artfully flailing.

Despite his profound influence on generations of dancers and choreographers, there's no indication that Cunningham ever dipped a toe into the waters of Judaism. His focus was entirely on exploring the possibilities of human movement, not on the gefilte fish versus lox debate, or how many times one could say