The document summarizes two stories related to the arts. The first story discusses the legacy of choreographer Merce Cunningham and his dance company, which is embarking on a final global tour before disbanding per Cunningham's wishes. This weekend, the company will perform its final North Carolina shows in Durham. The second story profiles music publisher Ken Weiss, who takes an unconventional view of online piracy by arguing it can help spread and promote music. Weiss has worked with major artists like Crosby, Stills, & Nash.

1. CCI 1ST SECTION, ZONE: ARTS&LIVING, STATE 15:46:51
SUNDAY, JANUARY 30, 2011 THE NEWS & OBSERVER A D
Arts&Living www.newsobserver.com/arts
last chance
N.C. Art Museum
The popular Norman
Rockwell exhibit
closes today.
http://bit.ly/htSxbP
life
Time for healing
As a lack of civility
rends the nation,
A.C. Snow takes a
stand. PAGE 8D
In the late 1940s, Merce Cunningham found an enclave at Black Mountain College near Asheville and returned during summers to a community that nurtured artists.
COURTESY OF ESTATE OF HAZEL LARSEN ARCHER AND BMC MUSEUM/ARTS CENTER
gether,” company archivist
Merce’s
David Vaughan said. “And
that was the official beginning
details
of the Merce Cunningham dance
Dance Company.” What: Merce Cunningham
Cunningham died in August Dance Company
2009 at age 90, an undisputed
legend in modern dance. Where: Durham Performing
Now the company he foun- Arts Center
legacy
ded in North Carolina six de- When: 8 p.m. Friday and
cades ago has embarked on a Saturday
By Rebecca J. Ritzel global “legacy tour.” When the
CORRESPONDENT tour ends early next year, the Cost: $38-$58
During the spring of 1948, troupe will fold, in keeping with Contact: www.dpacnc.com,
they were just two guys road- the choreographer’s wishes. 680-2787
tripping through the Great Cunningham in 2009 This weekend, Duke Perfor-
Smokies. mances will host the final lecture
MARK SELIGER - AP
John Cage and Merce Cun- North Carolina concerts at the What: Dance lecture by
ningham – young, soon to be faculty put on a postmodern va- Durham Performing Arts Tamara Levitz, associate
life partners, soon to be leaders riety show that historians refer Center. professor at the University
of the American avant-garde in to as “The Happening.” “This is going to be our last
of California at Los Angeles
art, music and dance – were Accounts of the night differ, opportunity to see the Cun-
looking for a pack of fellow bo- but it’s clear that that August ningham company, so we’ve Herb Alpert School of Music.
Before the legendary choreographer’s hemians to rhapsodize with. evening of intermingled art at been talking about it a lot,” Where: Room 101 Mary Duke
company folds for good, it will spin Cage and Cunningham found
their enclave at Black Moun-
Black Mountain influenced
every dance that Cunningham
said Barbara Dickinson, direc-
tor of the undergraduate
Biddle Music Building, Duke
University
through our area tain College near Asheville, and would create for the next 60 dance program at Duke Uni- When: 4 p.m. Friday
the following summer they re- years. Cage and Cunningham versity. “Cage and Cunning-
Photo gallery: More images of Merce turned as residents of a com- returned to Black Mountain ham were such seminal fig- Cost: Free
Cunningham at www.newsobserver.com. munity that included director for another summer, in 1953, ures of the 20th-century Contact: 660-3333
Arthur Penn, artists Willem this time bringing a small avant-garde.”
and Elaine de Kooning and ar- troupe of dancers. She can say that now, after
chitect Buckminster Fuller. “John and Merce decided decades of study, but in the
In 1952, they were back that somehow, they were go-
again, and this time the visiting ing to keep these dancers to- SEE MERCE, PAGE 3D
Lookout Books gets great
Go ahead, steal his music writer and gets noticed
Producer Ken Weiss challenges old notions about online piracy
By Pam Kelley
By David Menconi And that gives him a perspec- STAFF WRITER
J
STAFF WRITER tive that is somewhat unusual. ust days after UNC Wilmington’s
CHAPEL HILL “If only more people would new Lookout Books released its
debut publication this month, The
M
ost music business take my songs without paying
types of a certain for them, I know what value New York Times raved about it on the
generation bristle at that can create,” Weiss says. front of its books section.
the mention of online piracy. “The more pervasive my music How unusual is it for a small, inde-
Ken Weiss, however, doesn’t is, the more opportunity there pendent press to land a front-of-the-
have a problem with it. is for ancillary uses. So my job section New York Times review with
“My mission is not to stop with a song is to make it more its first book?
people from stealing,” says pervasive. I’d rather 2 million It’s probably unprecedented.
Weiss, a music publisher for people steal it than 50,000 buy “It’s like a rookie stepping up to the
more than 40 years, “but to en- it, any day of the week.” plate for the first time and hitting a fiction
courage them to do more of it.” Over the past four decades, grand slam,” says Lookout editorial di-
Binocular Vision
Weiss, 62, co-teaches an Weiss has worked with some rector Ben George.
Edith Pearlman
arts entrepreneurship class at of the biggest names in popu- After glowing reviews of Edith
UNC-Chapel Hill nowadays, lar music. His house sports a Pearlman’s “Binocular Vision” from Lookout Books, 392
and he’s done a little of every- wall of gold and platinum re- The New York Times and the Los An- pages
Stephen Stills, left, and Ken Weiss outside Los geles Times, the folks at Lookout
thing in the business. But cords, mostly for ’70s-vintage
Angeles’ Greek Theatre in the early 1980s. Books have been swamped, respond-
mostly he has worked in pub- superstars such as Crosby
lishing – getting songs record- Stills & Nash, Firefall and Weiss, who worked with some of the biggest ing to interview requests, queries from
ed and/or used in movies, names in popular music, is teaching at UNC-CH.
commercials and so forth. SEE WEISS, PAGE 6D COURTESY OF KEN WEISS SEE LOOKOUT, PAGE 9D