Cunningham's Gifts.

MORE THAN SIX decades' worth of photographs, films, posters, theater programs and other documents from choreographer Merce Cunningham and his dance company are finding a home in the Jerome Robbins Dance Division at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. One special treat for dance scholars: Cunningham's personal choreographic notes from the 1930s to the present, including about fifty hours of computer files on his most recent creations. But there are less serious delights as well, like a 1934 program from a school dance recital that features young "Mercier Cunningham" in a soft-shoe duet. The library already houses the collected music manuscripts of composer John Cage, Cunningham's collaborator and companion until Cage's death in 1992.

Cunningham wasn't always the gray-haired eminence of recent fame: At left, he's flanked by Dorothy Herrmann, right, and Syvilla Fort in Skinny Structures, from a 1939 performance at the Cornish School in Seattle, Washington. At left below, Cunningham dances in his 1953 piece Solo. Cunningham's troupe is silhouetted, at right below, in a 1964 poster by artist Robert Rauschenberg, one of the choreographer's longtime collaborators. At bottom right, Cunningham chats with Rauschenberg, right, and composer John Cage, left, in London in 1964. These images are part of the lifetime's worth of documents and photographs from Cunningham's long career that will take up residence on the shelves of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division at the New York Library for the Performing Arts.