In Bill T. Jones’ Story/Time, the MacArthur “Genius” and Tony-winning choreographer takes inspiration from John Cage’s 1959 work Indeterminacy, sharing a series of poetic reflections, organized by chance and punctuated by dance and music. In the spirit of the performance, we offer a series of short reflections by Jones from a recent interview with performing arts curator Philip Bither.

For five decades, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and the Walker have had deep ties, from commissions and residencies to a 2008 performance in a granite quarry and the Walker’s acquisition of the company décor and costumes in 2011. Fittingly, when the company performed for the last time on New Year’s weekend, Walker staff, including its director and performing arts curator, were in attendance.

The six performers onstage in Young Jean Lee’s Untitled Feminist Show could scarcely be more exposed. In a move to “de-objectify the performers,” all actors wear no clothing or makeup. But beyond that, they work without a script, without dialogue. In a recent interview, Lee discusses these choices as well as her strategy of building each show as “a trap” for audiences.

How does the Walker’s Out There series reflect or reject broader performing arts currents in the Unites States and around the globe? Walker staff writer Julie Caniglia tests the waters surrounding the quartet of theatrical freethinkers appearing at this 24th annual festival of adventurous performance.

Performance is by nature slippery—the work exists only in the moment of its enactment; later, as something remembered or recounted in stories, it’s filtered through someone’s lens. So, if you’re a museum like the Walker that “collects” performing arts, where does this leave you? With plenty of questions and access to top thinkers in the field.

“Activity and open curiosity support the muscle of art,” Robert Rauschenberg once said. His work with choreographer Merce Cunningham actively embodied this idea, spanning more than 20 collaborations, five decades, and countless creative and pragmatic challenges.

What happens when two powerful artistic personalities come together to create work for the stage? Walker curator Darsie Alexander looks at the initial transformative 10-year collaborative relationship between eminent dancer/choreographer Merce Cunningham and visual artist Robert Rauschenberg.

Video projections, a beer-swigging Herakles, a sample from the movie His Girl Friday: Big Dance Theater’s Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar discuss the choices they made in adapting Euripides’ 438 BC tragicomedy Alkestis to give it resonance today.

“I’m fascinated by what drives people to get out of bed and to push the Sisyphean boulder up the hill again and again,” says Kenneth Parris on his New York Times sketches of dancers in the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. “Under the patina of grace and glamour, there lies a working-class ethic.”