I was among the 1,500 or so spectators fortunate enough to have a ticket to the last performance of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company on New Year’s Eve. The 14 dancers took over three low stages in the cavernous Drill Hall at the Park Avenue Armory, offering 50 minutes of excerpts from the 58-year span of the company’s presence in New York. When the choreographer died at age 90, in 2009, part of his legacy was to fold the company within 2 years of his death.

Most members of the audience milled around the hall to catch the movement from different points of view; some sat on chairs alongside the stages or stood on high platforms for a panoramic view of what was truly a spectacle, complete with rafts of opaque white balloon-like clusters among the dimly lit chandeliers, and four trumpeters playing from ledges high above the majestic pageant.

The young dancers, in gossamer bodysuits that emphasized their magnificent form, moved from stage to stage as the program unfolded. It was thrilling to experience the work of the legendary choreographer at close range—often the dancers were just a few feet away. But as they took their final bows to a roar of applause and many a tear-stained face in the audience, it seemed a tragic waste of talent to let such a company disband. Photo above: Anna Finke, courtesy Cunningham Dance Foundation.

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