ICA BOSTON WILL RESTAGE LONG-LOST MERCE CUNNINGHAM DANCE

The Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, with the Merce Cunningham Trust, will restage a long-lost performance by the choreographer, according to the New York Times’ Hilarie M. Sheets. Cunningham’s “Changeling,” performed in 1957, will be part of “Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933-1957.”

The piece originally premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and was Cunningham’s third solo involving chance. Most had believed that, decades later, the documentation of the choreography was lost and that only written descriptions, the red distressed unitard and skullcap designed by Rauschenberg, and a score by Christian Wolff remained.

But Alla Kovgan, who’s producing a film about Cunningham, became aware that a German TV station had filmed a performance of “Changeling.” “I thought, it’s German archives, they can’t lose anything,” said Kovgan, who requested unidentified film from the station and then combed through the results until she found what she was looking for.

“It was stunning to see clear footage of him dancing in his prime, especially one of these iconic solos we heard about for so many years,” said Patricia Lent, director of licensing at the Merce Cunningham Trust. One of the last dancers to train with Cunningham, Silas Riener, consented to master the dance.