Cunningham review – powerful 3D documentary about a dance pioneer

This highbrow study is fascinating less for its fancy 3D footsteps than for its insight into choreographer Merce Cunningham's life and work

The 3D format, all the rage for about five minutes after Avatar, makes a comeback. Not deployed for a Hollywood blockbuster, but to capture dance in a documentary about the pioneering choreographer Merce Cunningham, who died in 2009 aged 90. The headachey effect of the technology (and faff for the glasses-wearers of having to put 3D goggles over our specs) justifies itself with some gorgeous closeups that take the viewer right inside the sequences. Yet the most exhilarating footage is the black-and-white archive of the young Cunningham dancing with uncanny animal alertness. He had the most beautiful feet: exquisite long articulate toes, each one a dancer in its own right, a personal troupe of 10.

Related: Now in 3D! Merce Cunningham's mind-blowing dance