Trisha Brown Dance Company Revives Rauschenberg's 1963 'Pelican' for 1 Night in Brooklyn
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · May 31
Trisha Brown Dance Company Revives Rauschenberg's 1963 'Pelican' for 1 Night in Brooklyn
1 articles · Updated · The Guardian · May 31
At a one-night benefit at Brooklyn roller rink Xanadu, the Trisha Brown Dance Company reimagined Robert Rauschenberg’s 1963 dance “Pelican” for the first time.
The revival fused archival photos and notes with new choreography by Tara Lorenzen and dancers Ashley Hod, Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener because only a short video clip and a few black-and-white images of the original survive.
The piece keeps its signature risk: two skaters in 8ft parachutes circle a ballerina on pointe, turning the work into a trust-heavy feat of balance and partnering.
“Pelican” itself began by accident after a 1963 festival program mistakenly listed Rauschenberg as a choreographer; he then learned to skate and performed in the original.
The Brooklyn staging extends Rauschenberg’s long crossover with downtown New York dance, showing how a near-lost postmodern work can be rebuilt from fragments.
As Rauschenberg's dance was revived, was his physical legacy betrayed by the sale of his estate just weeks before?
Can new AI models truly resurrect a dance's soul, or is human interpretation in revivals like 'Pelican' irreplaceable?
If dancers' brains can neurally sync, could this technology be used to perfectly preserve ephemeral performances for the future?