Avant-garde dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham held a career in dance that spanned more than 70 years. In the 1960s, the dancer began collaborating with composer John Cage. Their work together pushed boundaries in the dance world that helped earn Cunningham international recognition for his creativity. Cunningham founded and directed his own dance company. During the 60s, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company produced almost 20 performances of original works.
The experimental dancer Carolyn Brown collaborated with some of the most well known creative minds active in the 1960s, from composers John Cage and Pauline Oliveros to visual artists Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol. She often performed as a soloist with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Critics with the New York Times praise her book, "Chance and Circumstance," about her time as a dancer in the 60s for the vivid insights that her perspective brings to the subject.
Biographer John Percival names Rudolf Nureyev as the most influential male dancer in ballet. The Russian dancer began his career in the early 1960s on the Kirov Ballet tour in France, after which he refused to return to Russia and requested political asylum from the French government. On November 27, 1963, Nureyev burst into the international scene while dancing in "La Bayadère" with the Royal Ballet, after which he danced as a guest star with all of the major ballet companies of Europe, the United States and Australia.
African ballet dancer Merle Park rose to prominence in the 1960s when she danced a particularly difficult role in the premiere of "La Bayadère," a program that also featured Rudolf Nureyev. Critics at the time gave special praise to her performance of Aurora in "Sleeping Beauty." She danced alongside some of the most popular and critically acclaimed male dancers of the era, including Mikhail Baryshnikov.