« Dancing with Bob : Rauschenberg, Brown et Cunningham Onstage » de Trisha Brown Dance Company

Two cult pieces, two radical choreographic styles, a shared breath of invention: Between the free momentum of Set & Reset and the surreal vaudeville of Travelogue, Dancing with Bob: Rauschenberg, Brown et Cunningham Onstage brings together two masterpieces of the American avant-garde. Moving images, offbeat humour, exhilarating virtuosity: an evening that opens wide the doors of imagination and celebrates an avant-garde that is still vibrant.

Dancing with Bob: Rauschenberg, Brown et Cunningham Onstage brings together two works where dance engages with the imagination of visual artist Robert Rauschenberg and emerges amplified. With Set & Reset (1983), Trisha Brown pushes her choreography to a rare degree of freedom: a movement that glides, unfolds, diverts, as if bodies are improvising within an invisible structure. Dancers brush past each other, get lost, find each other again, carried by a continuous flow that destabilises reference points and gives substance to a perpetual motion of infinite beauty. This piece concludes the cycle she named “Instable Molecular Structures”. The transparencies, moving images, and costumes designed by Rauschenberg, as well as Laurie Anderson's music, amplify this sensation of permanent momentum, emblematic of a postmodern dance that makes freedom a method of composition. Conversely, Travelogue (1977) emerges as a wildly unconventional object in Merce Cunningham's oeuvre: a piece imbued with the spirit of vaudeville and musical comedy, where improbable accessories, absurd situations, and surreal humour disrupt the rigour of his choreography. John Cage composes a fragmented soundscape, while Rauschenberg populates the stage with objects and colours that shift the dance towards burlesque theatre. Brought together to celebrate the centenary of "Bob" Rauschenberg, these two pieces reveal a stage transformed into a laboratory, where dance invents itself through contact with visual arts and music, where audacity remains the driving force behind everything, and the stage becomes a joyfully experimental playground.

Agnès Izrine

Duration: 1h15 with interval

Category: Dance