NEW YORK – Choreographer and dancer Merce Cunningham was hailed Monday as a revolutionary artist who remade the very definition of dance.

Cunningham – who was still working as he marked his 90th birthday just 3 1/2 months ago – died on Sunday at his Manhattan home, said Leah Sandals, spokeswoman for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. She said he died of natural causes but declined to elaborate.

The onetime Martha Graham dancer was credited with remaking modern dance by creating works of pure movement divorced from storytelling and even from musical accompaniment.