Trisha Brown Dance Company Will Tour Masterworks to Commemorate Robert Rauschenberg's Centennial

The Trisha Brown Dance Company (TBDC) with the Merce Cunningham Trust will celebrate the Centennial of the iconoclastic American artist Robert Rauschenberg with a national tour dedicated to his extraordinary partnerships with Trisha Brown and Merce Cunningham. Dancing with Bob: Rauschenberg, Brown and Cunningham Onstage will bring together these groundbreaking 20th century artists for a historic program of two masterpieces whose visual presentations were designed by Rauschenberg. Beginning with Brown's seminal work, Set and Reset (1983), with music by Laurie Anderson, the program will also feature Cunningham's Travelogue (1977), a vaudevillian pièce de résistance that has not been seen by a professional company since 1979. The tour kicks off in June 2025 at the American Dance Festival (ADF) in North Carolina followed by performances in several cities across the United States.

 

“The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation (RRF) is deeply honored to support the Trisha Brown Dance Company in partnership with the Merce Cunningham Trust as part of Rauschenberg's 2025 Centennial celebrations,” said Courtney J. Martin, Executive Director of RRF. “Rauschenberg's close friendships with Merce and Trisha were instrumental to his creative vision. Together, they redefined the boundaries of art and movement, and the possibilities for visual expression. Together, they demonstrated the power of collaboration across disciplines. We are thrilled to support this initiative, which continues to inspire contemporary artists today."

Initially meeting Cunningham at Black Mountain College in 1952, Rauschenberg was part of a unique collection of artists from different disciplines who created exciting experimental performances that continued to influence the art world for decades to come. He officially began collaborating with Cunningham in 1954, and throughout the next decade, he created sets, costume designs and lighting for over twenty of his dances. After a hiatus of more than a decade, Rauschenberg reunited with Cunningham, and they had intermittent collaborations until 2007. 

When Trisha Brown began to create works for the proscenium stage, her first collaborator was Rauschenberg, and together they created several of Brown's most iconic pieces. Their first joint-effort for the stage was Glacial Decoy (1979), followed by Set and Reset (1983), Foray Forêt (1990), and Astral Convertible (1991), among others. Rauschenberg was a lifetime member of TBDC's Board, and he and Brown became close friends, building a rich connection that lasted until Rauschenberg's death in 2008.

“Over the course of five decades, Trisha and Bob maintained a creative dialogue that deeply influenced one another and pushed the boundaries of form and movement,” said Kirstin Kapustik, Executive Director of TBDC.  “Set and Reset is the defining testament to their collaboration and remains a landmark work that exemplifies their shared spirit of innovation, experimentation, and artistic risk-taking.”

 

Set and Reset premiered in New York City at BAM's Next Wave Festival in 1983. The seductively fluid quality of the movement in this masterpiece, juxtaposed with the unpredictable geometric style has become a hallmark of Brown's work. Performed to a driving score by Laurie Anderson, the exploration of visibility and invisibility is reflected in the set and the translucent costumes designed by Rauschenberg. The set, a geometric construction on which newsreel footage is projected, hovers above the dancers, creating a vibrant environment, a living spectacle, that is full of activity and engagement. Set and Reset was hailed by The New York Times as “surely the most beloved and irresistible work of postmodern dance.”

Travelogue, which premiered at the Minskoff Theater in New York in 1977, marked the first time Rauschenberg, Cunningham, and John Cage collaborated again after their split in 1964. The piece features an aggregation of scenic elements entitled “Tantric Geography” that the dancers use in their series of antic encounters and deadpan entanglements which include bits of ballroom dancing and a high-stepping cakewalk. Cage's original score, Telephones and Birds, uses recordings of bird songs from the Australian National Collection of Bird Calls along with calls dialed live during the performance to pre-recorded messages of various kinds.

“The Trust is thrilled to help celebrate Bob's work and his close relationship with Merce by reviving Travelogue,” said the Merce Cunningham Trust. “Performed more than 25 times around the world after its premiere in 1977, the work left the repertory and has not been seen for 45 years. Merce credits his work with Bob, particularly on Summerspace in 1958, for opening his eyes to the possibility of collaborators working separately in a common space and time that became a hallmark of Merce's work. Travelogue perfectly plays into Bob's resourcefulness and inventiveness in creating the environment and necessary physical tools for Merce and his dancers to bring Merce's vision to life.”

 

The Company's tour currently includes performances in the following cities with additional cities including New York to be announced:

 Tour Dates

Durham, NC: American Dance Festival June 12, 13, 2025 — The performances at ADF will also feature the Paul Taylor Dance Company performing Tracer (1962) and 3 Epitaphs (1956), two iconic works with sets and costumes by Rauschenberg. 

Iowa City, IA: Hancher Auditorium, University of Iowa, November 7, 2025

Minneapolis, MN:  Venue TBA, November 11, 2025

Washington, D.C.:  The Kennedy Center, December 3, 4, 5, 2025

Columbus, OH: The Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University, February 6, 2026

Beverly Hills, CA:  Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, April 16, 17, 18, 2026 

 

In addition, the Menil Collection in Houston, TX will present a series of performances in their galleries featuring a selection of choreography from both works, November 13-14, 2025.

 

Dancing with Bob: Rauschenberg, Brown and Cunningham Onstage is generously supported by Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, The Dedalus Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies and the James E. Robison Foundation.

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