Merce Cunningham, 1919-2009

Emergence
Though Cunningham (center, near the floor, above) grew up as a performer under the tutelage of Martha Graham beginning in the late 1930s, he would eventually move away from the fierce, deeply emotive contortions of America's goddess of modern dance. By 1953, he had started the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, beginning a legendary collaboration with the innovative modern composer John Cage, whom he met while working with Graham and who would become not just an artistic but a life partner.

• TIME's 1960 story on Cunningham