Merce Cunningham came to dance because of tap dance lessons he received at a young age. He was a dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company for five years before establishing the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in 1953. He developed the Cunningham technique, in which the spine acts as a spring and can coil, twist and turn. His technique also employs intricate direction changes and many shifts of wight throughout a given phrase of movement. He created dances that were devoid of meaning and were "movement for movement's sake." He is credited with being "the father of post-modern dance."
