TRISHA BROWN DANCE COMPANY

A towering figure of twentieth-century American art, Robert Rauschenberg was also a huge fan of dance, which he saw as an exceptional field of experimentation. In the early 1960s, he worked with the Judson Dance Theater in New York, creating visual environments for the stage that were deeply tied to the notion of movement. Conceived by the Trisha Brown Dance Company with the Merce Cunningham Trust on the occasion of his centenary, Dancing with Bob brings together two historic pieces: Set and Reset (1983) by Trisha Brown and Travelogue (1977) by Merce Cunningham. In the former piece, Trisha Brown’s choreography is alive, fluid, and undefinable, bodies circulating and intersecting in an interplay of projections, transparencies, and overlays conceived by Rauschenberg and set to the music of Laurie Anderson. In the latter work, Merce Cunningham worked with Rauschenberg and John Cage to create a teeming work composed of fragments, displacements, and astonishing situations, in which abstraction occasionally intertwines with a subtle, unexpected humorousness. By bringing together these two major names in postmodern dance, the programme showcases Rauschenberg’s central presence during these avant-garde years.