Merce Cunningham, who died on 26 July, 2009, aged 90, was a renowned dancer, choreographer and teacher.

He was considered one of America’s greatest ever dancers and a pioneer of modern dance, combining an expressionism with roots in Eastern philosophy and modern technology.

He was thought to have created more than 1,000 unique dances and his honours included the National Medal of Arts, the MacArthur Fellowship, the Laurence Olivier Award, Japan's Praemium Imperiale and France’s Légion d'honneur.

Mercier Philip Cunningham was born on 26 July, 2009, in Centralia, Washington and began dancing at the age of10. He moved to New York at 20 and worked under avant-garde dancer Martha Graham for six years.

In New York he also met his long-term collaborator and romantic partner, the composer John Cage. The pair shared not only an experimental artistic vision but also a fascination with ancient Chinese texts such as the I Ching (Book of Changes) and Tao Te Ching (Book of Way and Virtue).

In 1953, Mr Cunningham founded the Merce Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC) at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. There he would teach students his methods for exploring the possibilities of human movements.

The small company initially toured the States performing pieces devised by Cunningham and Cage, eventually achieving worldwide recognition. Throughout the years Cunningham was known for utilising new technology to complement his dancing, such as a film, projections and computer motion-capture.

His enthusiasm for dancing did not diminish in later life – he continued to choreograph perhaps more prolifically than ever and began a series of video dance lessons and lectures through the MCDC’s website.

He celebrated his 90th birthday by presenting a new work at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Judith Fishman, chairman of the Cunningham Dance Foundation, said: "Merce was an artistic maverick and the gentlest of geniuses. We have lost a great man and a great artist, but we celebrate his extraordinary life, his art, and the dancers and the artists with whom he worked."