Performers: Zack Gonder, Tamisha Guy, Stephen Haley, Claude “CJ” Johnson, Chalvar Monteiro, Chaery Moon
Music: David Tudor, performed live by Composers Inside Electronics
Since 2021, the Merce Cunningham Trust and Baryshnikov Arts Center have partnered on four In Conversation with Merce projects. These experiments spark cross-generational and interdisciplinary exchanges by sharing Cunningham’s work and ideas with contemporary artists and audiences alongside new commissions.
New RainForest(s) continues this lineage but adopts a uniquely collaborative approach, initiated by three dance artists and one filmmaker. Claude “CJ” Johnson, Chalvar Monteiro, Chaery Moon, and filmmaker Alex Munro have been involved in previous In Conversation programs and Baryshnikov Arts Center choreography residencies. They are steeped in Cunningham’s work through a decade of projects and performances. For this fifth iteration, Cunningham’s seminal dance, RainForest, will be presented in two parts, anchored by new dances and accompanied by new video design.
Why RainForest?
“My interest in responding to RainForest stems from wanting to unlock the needed unpredictability yet commonality within creativity when responding to timeless work.” —Claude “CJ” Johnson
“The atmosphere of RainForest is thick with tension and grit, inviting an honest and almost primal quality of the performers. For me, this work employs the potency of memory confronted with a distressed or frayed present, with the promise of a future unknown; a site of visitation and innovation.” —Chalvar Monteiro
“What draws me to RainForest is its refusal to settle into a single center or narrative. Instead, it proposes an environment where disparate beings can simply exist on their own terms. The unpredictable relationships that emerge create the feeling of an ever-shifting ecosystem. I see this structure as deeply connected to the way we live now, as well as the physical states I have been exploring—a body that cannot be reduced to a single emotion or meaning, where multiple temporalities and sensations coexist. RainForest provides a framework where these layers don’t need to be organized or resolved; they are simply allowed to be.” —Chaery Moon
All details subject to change.
Merce Cunningham (1919–2009) was a celebrated dancer and choreographer renowned for his groundbreaking work, his lifelong passion for innovation, and his profound influence on generations of dancemakers and artists. Born in Centralia, Washington, he attended the Cornish School in Seattle where he was introduced to the work of Martha Graham and met the composer John Cage who would become his closest collaborator and life partner. In 1939, Cunningham began a six-year tenure as a soloist in the Graham company, and soon began presenting his own choreography most notably on joint music and dance concerts with Cage. In the summer of 1953, during a teaching residency at Black Mountain College, Cunningham formed a dance company to explore his innovative ideas. Over the course of his seventy-year career he choreographed 180 dances including such iconic works as Suite for Five, Summerspace, RainForest, Sounddance, Pictures, Beach Birds, BIPED, and Ocean. He also presented nearly 800 Events in museums, gymnasiums, outdoor stages and theaters, beginning in 1964 with the Museum Event No. 1 at the Museum des 20.Jahrhunderts. Cunningham premiered his final work, Nearly Ninety, on his ninetieth birthday. The Merce Cunningham Dance Company remained in continuous operation until its closure in 2011, giving nearly three thousand performances in over forty countries. In collaboration with John Cage, Cunningham proposed a series of radical ideas including the separation of music and dance, the use of chance operations, and novel ways to utilize film and technology. He collaborated with such renowned artists and composers as Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, David Tudor, Christian Wolff, and Takehisa Kosugi. Cunningham earned some of the highest honors bestowed in the arts including a MacArthur Fellowship (1985), a Kennedy Center Honor (1985), a Laurence Olivier Award (1985), the National Medal of Arts (1990), and Japan’s Praemium Imperiale (2005). In 2004, he was named Officier of the Legion d’Honneur. Today, Cunningham’s work continues to be performed by professional and student dancers worldwide, and Cunningham Technique ® is taught in countless studios and educational institutions.
A Chicago native, Claude “CJ” Johnson is a dancer, choreographer, and movement director based in Brooklyn, NY. After completing his studies at The Chicago Academy for the Arts and SUNY Purchase College, where he was awarded the Adopt-A-Dancer Scholarship, Johnson has had the opportunity to perform works by Merce Cunningham, Trisha Brown, Twyla Tharp, Mark Morris, Aszure Barton, zoe | juniper, Johannes Wieland, Kevin Wynn, Princess Madoki, and many more. He was also a full-time company dancer with A.I.M. by Kyle Abraham from 2017 to 2022, during which he became a 2021 Princess Grace nominee. Johnson is currently a guest dancer for companies and choreographers such as Trisha Brown Dance Company, A.I.M. by Kyle Abraham, NVA & Guess, Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener, Keerati Jinakunwiphat, and many others. He has also participated in his own choreographic residencies through Baryshnikov Arts Center, The Joyce Theater, MOtiVE Brooklyn, CUNY Dance Initiative, and many more. As a performer, choreographer, and Black queer artist, Johnson dances to translate the human experience for audiences, recognizing dance as the most powerful catalyst for self-expression and social change.
Chalvar Monteiro hails from Montclair, NJ, trained at Sharron Miller’s Academy for the Performing Arts, and received his BFA from the Conservatory of Dance at SUNY Purchase. As a performer and collaborator, Monteiro has worked with Sidra Bell Dance New York, Elisa Monte Dance, KEIGWIN + COMPANY, A.I.M. by Kyle Abraham, BODYTRAFFIC, GALLIM, Ailey II, and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. In 2019, Monteiro performed in The Cunningham Trust’s Night of 100 Solos: A Centennial Event and has participated in numerous events with The Cunningham Trust. As a dance maker, Monteiro has presented his choreography across the country and founded THE MNTRO PRJCT in 2024 which debuted at the 2024 Fire Island Dance Festival. He’s participated in residencies at UNCSA’s Choreographic Institute and Baryshnikov Arts Center. Monteiro’s choreography has been presented at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Fordham University, Asbury Park Dance Festival, Chez Bushwick, Arts On Site, the Conservatory of Dance at SUNY Purchase, Marymount Manhattan College, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Ailey II, and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. He has led technique classes and repertory workshops nationally and internationally. He joined the faculty at NYU Tisch School of the Arts in 2020 and was appointed Visiting Arts Professor in the Fall of 2025.
Chaery Moon is a choreographer and performer whose work bridges dance, visual art, and technology-informed practices. Trained at the Korean National Ballet and the Korea National Institute for the Gifted in Arts, Moon gained early international acclaim as a Tanzolymp winner in Berlin. She holds a BFA from The Juilliard School and an MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. After performing with Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon, Moon shifted her focus to interdisciplinary collaboration, foregrounding the body as a site of perception and lived experience. Her choreography has been supported by institutions including NYFA, LMCC, the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture, Arts Council Korea, the Leimay Foundation, and Baryshnikov Arts Center, where she was a 2025 Residency Artist. As a performer, she has worked with Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener and the Merce Cunningham Trust. A certified Cunningham Technique ® instructor, she has taught at The Juilliard School and NYU Tisch, and her critical writing has appeared in Dance and People and Dance Magazine (Korea).
Alex Munro is a filmmaker who works primarily with visual and performing artists. His practice is focused on exploring the relationship between live performance and imagemaking. He works with a number of NY-based art institutions, such as MoMA, The Whitney, Pace Gallery, and Hauser & Wirth, collaborating with artists on live performance works as well as documentary films.
Merce Cunningham and Meg Harper in RainForest (1968). Photograph by Martha Keller, 1968. Courtesy of the Merce Cunningham Trust and the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library.
Headshots courtesy of the artists.