Robert Ellis Dunn lineage

Robert Dunn started off studying tap and then studied and taught  music in England. From there, he began studying at the Boston Conservatory where he began working with Merce Cunningham. He
first collaborated and is known for working with Cunningham in Boston and New York City. Dunn attended many of John Cage's seminars on composition and applied many of Cage's principles to his movement classes. Dunn appreciated and applied Cage's non-judgemental approach in teaching. He encouraged his dancers to play and experiment with phrasing and musicality inside of improvisation.
Steve Paxton, Trisha Brown, and David Gordon are some of his students that he had. In 1962, his class performed his work at Judson Memorial Church. This performance was considered a new era of modern dance because of its non traditional approaches to choreography, specifically in the use of improvisation. Dunn was interested in "videodance" and worked with Matt Chernov on installing this and premiered this in the Haggerty Museum of Art in Milwaukee in 1997.

"For several years now, I have felt that the two greatest learning occasions of my life were provided by John Cage, my teacher of experimental music, in the late 50s and early 60s, and Irmgard Bartenieff, my teacher of movement analysis, in the early 70s. In each case the influence was so deep and pervasive that it is impossible to lift it out for objective examination." -Robert Dunn, Strathmore Museum

-Melissa Gross