A mouse swirls, then bodies twirl

Technology made it possible for Gene Kelly to dance with a mouse in 1945’s “Anchors Aweigh,” and for Fred Astaire to hoof on the ceiling in “Royal Wedding,” released in 1950. But it’s postmodernist Merce Cunningham, creator of abstract, kinetically pure dances, who has decidedly taken the art form into the 21st century by choreographing with the aid of a computer.

At 83, Cunningham, whom the Wall Street Journal called “the world’s greatest living choreographer,” has made more than 200 works since founding Merce Cunningham Dance Company five decades ago. But since putting finger to, well, mouse, in 1989, with a computer program called Life Forms that manipulates figures across a screen, Cunningham’s pieces have evolved in complexity, scope and virtuosity.

Four computer-assisted dances will be seen over three nights (along with four earlier works) beginning Thursday at UCLA’s Royce Hall, as part of the company’s 50th anniversary tour.

Last year’s “Loose Time,” a 30-minute exploration of rhythm (music by Christian Wolff), is a work new to Los Angeles. Cunningham says 50% of the material comes from the computer, including a minute-and-a-half well-reviewed solo by Holley Farmer.

“What I wanted to do was to go as extreme as possible from one position to another,” explains Cunningham, who often works on a laptop as he traverses the globe with the company. “I put it in the computer, looked at it and thought it could go further. I brought the material back to the studio and described the position or showed Holley. She would get in it and I would describe the next position, then she would make a funny, marvelous face -- and do it. It took me about three hours to put it in the computer, and working with Holley on continuity, we did it in less than an hour.”

Cunningham says that Life Forms has also evolved and is now in its sixth upgraded version. “One of the changes is you can go back at any moment and check the movement and change it. In other words, it has this mechanism now so it isn’t fixed until you make the decision.”

About technical glitches, Cunningham admits to having constantly crashed when he first began clicking away, but he now experiences few meltdowns. As for pushing his dancers to their limits, Cunningham notes, “I think dancers are capable of more today, but years ago, when we started, what we did, that was difficult then, but now this is difficult in a different way.”

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Merce Cunningham Dance Company

Where: UCLA’s Royce Hall

When: Thursday-Saturday, 8 p.m.

Price: $15-$50

Contact: (310) 825-2101