The Walker's Music For Merce is a study in restraint and abstraction

The introduction to the Walker Art Center's Merce Cunningham retrospective Common Time asks, "Can silence be music? Can stillness be dance?" Throughout the two-hour Music for Merce performance Thursday, musicians from three generations tested the parameters of that philosophical debate with works that paid homage to the innovative legacy of the choreographer and his partner John Cage. Their radical sonic expressions explored the space surrounding the music that Cage was known for, while suggesti