Signals from the West: Bay Area Artists in Conversation with Merce Cunningham at 100 was a bicoastal collaboration with the Merce Cunningham Trust, ODC Theater and SFMOMA’s Open Space as part of the international celebration of the Cunningham centennial. Signals from the West commissioned ten Bay Area artists from diverse disciplines, perspectives, and ways of working, who had never worked directly with the Cunningham company to participate in a residency August 12-23, 2019 with former Cunningham dancers Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener and create new works of art in response to this experience. These commissioned works premiered, alongside excerpts of Cunningham repertory performed by Bay Area dancers at ODC Theater on November 8 & 9, 2019.  SFMOMA’s Open Space commissioned an online written series in conjunction with the program.

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The ten commissioned artists were: Sofia Cordova, Maxe Crandall, Alex Escalante, Christy Funsch, Julie Moon, Jenny Odell, Nicole Peisl, Danishta Rivero, Dazaun Soleyn, and Sophia Wang. The dancers who performed Cunningham repertory as part of this program were Sarah Cecilia Bukowski, Traci Finch, Emily Hansel, and Stacey Yuen.