Dancing with Bob: Rauschenberg, Brown & Cunningham Onstage
Trisha Brown Dance Company
with the Merce Cunningham Trust
In 2026, Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels presents Dancing with Bob: Rauschenberg, Brown & Cunningham Onstage a program by the Trisha Brown Dance Company, in collaboration with Brooklyn Academy of Music, as part of the Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Festival in New York.
Beginning in June 2025, Trisha Brown Dance Company and Merce Cunningham Trust celebrated the centennial of the visionary American artist Robert Rauschenberg. While widely recognized for his groundbreaking contributions to visual art, Rauschenberg also played a significant role in theater and dance both as a performer and as a designer for choreographers over several decades. Among the many dance artists with whom he collaborated, Merce Cunningham and Trisha Brown were his most frequent and notable partners.
For this occasion, the Trisha Brown Dance Company unites the work of these iconic 20th-century artists in an evening of dance featuring “visual presentations” designed by Rauschenberg. The program includes Brown’s beloved Set and Reset, with music by Laurie Anderson, alongside Cunningham’s Travelogue, a vaudevillian pièce de résistance featuring music by John Cage that hasn’t been performed by a professional company since 1979.
“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