Robert Rauschenberg’s Sharp Dancing Mind on Display Review of the Trisha Brown Dance Company's 'Dancing With Bob: Rauschenberg, Brown and Cunningham Onstage.'

By Gia Kourlas

The first burst of movement in “Travelogue,” a 1977 dance by Merce Cunningham, doesn’t come from a performer, but from a piece of the set by Robert Rauschenberg. Against a vivid red background, a train of items, pulled onstage by a rope, glides in quickly and parks to reveal a long white platform featuring rows of wooden chairs, each divided by bicycle wheels; dancers, seated, are frozen in silhouette. It’s so odd, and so chic.

Rauschenberg’s “Tantric Geography” — the set of Cunningham’s “Travelogue” that, yes, deserves its own title — later includes diaphanous banners that drift like sails in a warm breeze.

“Travelogue,” featuring Cunningham’s choreography, a score by John Cage and reconstructions of its set and costumes by Rauschenberg, is normally a dance relegated to those lucky enough to have seen it live (the last professional performance was in 1979) or in photographs. In honor of Rauschenberg’s centennial, the Trisha Brown Dance Company has revived it on a wonderful double bill, “Dancing With Bob: Rauschenberg, Brown and Cunningham Onstage.”