Trisha Brown Dance Company With Merce Cunningham Trust at Northrop

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