Northrop and the Walker Art Center Present
Trisha Brown Dance Company
With Merce Cunningham Trust
2025–26 Northrop Season
Tue, Nov 11, 7:30 pm
Step into a century of genre-blending creativity with Trisha Brown Dance Company (TBDC) and Merce Cunningham Trust’s (MCT) Dancing with Bob: Rauschenberg, Brown & Cunningham Onstage. To celebrate the 2025 centennial of the visionary American artist Robert Rauschenberg, TBDC unites the work of iconic 20th-century artists for an evening of dance featuring visual presentations designed by Rauschenberg. The program includes Trisha Brown’s beloved Set and Reset, set to music by Laurie Anderson, alongside Merce Cunningham’s Travelogue, a large-scaled vaudevillian pièce de résistance with music by John Cage—which hasn’t been staged by a professional company since 1979. In conjunction with the performance, the Walker Art Center will exhibit its collection of Rauschenberg scenery and costumes for Trisha Brown Dance Company in Glacial Decoy, on view Jun 26, 2025–May 24, 2026. Experience the electricity when dance, art, and history collide!
While widely recognized for his groundbreaking contributions to visual art, Rauschenberg also played a significant role in the performing arts—both as a performer and as a designer for choreographers over several decades. Among the many dance artists he collaborated with, his most frequent and notable partnerships were with Cunningham and Brown.
“I always tell people that dance is the most fragile art form because it’s dependent on everything about you … You know, everything shows—your body in a specific time and place, whatever it’s thinking, whatever it’s feeling. It’s all right there. I’m definitely envious.”—Robert Rauschenberg
Top image: Trisha Brown Dance Company. Photo © Mark Hanauer.
Articles & More
“Seeing Trisha’s company dance was love at first sight … I admired her physical imagination, the feeling that the body can go anywhere. There was always curiosity, exploration, and subtlety.”—Dance Magazine
"When Robert Rauschenberg Found a Home in Dance: A Trisha Brown company tour recalls a time when Rauschenberg, one of the country’s most influential artists, was changing and being changed by American dance."—The New York Times
Set and Reset: (1983) multicam. Performance: Tate Modern, London, UK, 2017.
Travelogue (1977) Excerpt from The South Bank Show television series, 1980
Walker Reader: "Intersection: Trisha Brown and Robert Rauschenberg, Glacial Decoy (1979)"
To Help You Decide
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Know Before You Go
Event Information
- Seating: Ticket Required
- Performance Begins: 7:30 pm
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- Detailed Event Information: Check back for more information closer to the date.
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Important Links–Planning Your Visit
Learn More - Explore These Themes
The content below derives from the Northrop Across Campus Program that supports Northrop's mission towards intersections between performing arts and education for the benefit of all participants now and for generations to come.
Find ways to make thematic connections to these suggested topics:
- Dance: Modern, Postmodern, Avant-garde
- Visual Arts: Graphic Art, Pop Art, Set Design, Costume
- Music: Avant-garde, Experimental
- Postmodernism
- U.S. History
- Multidisciplinary Collaboration
- Art Curation & Preservation
Dive deeper with these resources that provide additional information about the performers, the history of the artform, and the artistic process.
Links:
Trisha Brown biography website
Essay: "Trisha Brown: Dance-maker, Leader, Humanist" by Wendy Perron
"When Robert Rauschenberg Found a Home in Dance"—The New York Times
Video: "Set and Reset: Trisha Brown’s Postmodern Masterpiece"
Video: "Talking Dance: Trisha Brown"
Merce Cunningham biography website
"Merce Cunningham Dance Company Ends Its Legacy Tour"—The New York Times
Video: "The Six Sides of Merce Cunningham"
Video: "Is This Even Music? John Cage, Schoenberg, and Outsider Artists"
Video: "John Cage: A Music Composing Genius or a Composed Con Artist?"
Video: "Laurie Anderson: On Identity and Her God Complex"
Video: "Laurie Anderson - About Creativity - 2002"
Video: Robert Rauschenberg: The Art of Performance, 1997
Video: "Robert Rauschenberg - Pop Art Pioneer Full BBC Documentary 2016"
Start a conversation about the performance or encourage reflection, using these questions as inspiration.
Dancing with Bob: Rauschenberg, Brown & Cunningham Onstage honors the centennial of art legend Robert Rauschenberg, who the Walker Art Center describes as a “perpetual and intentional novice, moving between media and often changing his practice as soon as working in a certain way became too easy for him.” The performance will showcase Rauschenberg's distinctive visual presentation and celebrate iconic 20th-century artists, including Trisha Brown's acclaimed Set & Reset, set to music by Laurie Anderson, and Merce Cunningham's comedic Travelogue, a masterpiece rarely seen by the public since 1979, with music by John Cage.
- Early in his career, Rauschenberg’s work often received negative reviews from critics and viewers. In what ways do you imagine an “intentional novice” approach would either liberate or hinder an artist?
- What might have been some advantages and challenges of switching between so many mediums and working with a variety of artistic collaborators?
- What might be the challenges and opportunities for companies performing historical works, especially when the original creator has passed?
In conjunction with the performance, attendees are invited to the Walker Art Center’s Glacial Decoy exhibit, featuring Rauschenberg sets and costumes created for Trisha Brown Dance Company, on display from Jun 26, 2025 to May 24, 2026.
- How do the visual elements surrounding dance, like costumes and set design, affect the experience of the performers and/or audience?
- How might Northrop and the Walker Art Center curate unique experiences for audiences and artists that incorporate the multimedia elements of this performance featuring art, music, and dance?
As one of the most acclaimed and influential choreographers and dancers of her time, Trisha Brown’s groundbreaking work forever changed the landscape of art. Expanding the physical behaviors that qualified as dance, she discovered the extraordinary in the everyday. She brought tasks, rule games, natural movement, and improvisation into the making of choreography. In 1970, she founded the Trisha Brown Dance Company, with which she created more than 100 works, while simultaneously producing graphic art and drawings that have earned her recognition in numerous museum exhibitions and collections.
- How might choreography (or other forms of art) be inspired by the movements of the natural world and everyday phenomena? How might this perspective contrast or align with historical forms of classical, artistic expression?
- What role do rules play in improvisational art? How might the practice of creative improvisation influence an artist’s practice and/or personal life?
Merce Cunningham started his own dance company in 1953 and created hundreds of unique choreographic works. Defined by precision and complexity, Cunningham's dances combined intense physicality with intellectual rigor. He challenged traditional ideas of dance, including the roles of dancers and the audience, the limitations of the stage, and the relationships between movement and beauty. The Merce Cunningham Dance Company disbanded two years after his death, which occurred in 2009 at the age of 90. Cunningham's wish was for the company to perform a final two-year Legacy Tour, and then sunset, leaving control of his works to the Merce Cunningham Trust.
- Is it essential for artists to push boundaries of culture and art? How might traditional ideas of the stage and the audience’s role be challenged during a performance or artistic experience?
- How would you define “beauty” in art? Is it essential for art to be beautiful? If so, who or what develops cultural notions of beauty?
- Imagine you created a dance company. Would you want your company to continue after your death, or, like Cunningham, would you choose to dissolve the company?
Acknowledgments
This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
