Dunn '64 reprises major works

Choreographer Douglas Dunn ’64 first came to dance when a professor steered him to the Princeton Ballet Society in his junior year of college, and after being invited to join choreographer Merce Cunningham’s company a few years later, he never looked back. One of America’s foremost experimental choreographers, Dunn founded his own company in 1978. Instead of winding down a few years ago, he created Homestretch, a three-year program aimed at reprising some of his major works. The program’s latest installment includes four performances of Pulcinella, along with a new piece, as part of the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Festival in New York City, Feb. 25–March 1.  

Originally commissioned for the Paris Opera Ballet as an homage to Igor Stravinsky in 1980, Pulcinella reinterprets the composer’s 1920 ballet by the same name. In the 40-minute piece, eight women and seven men make quick shifts between puppetlike stances and fluid movements inspired by drawings of the trickster character Pulcinella (known in England as Mr. Punch).