“[I]t seems that many of the visual arts curators currently working to promote visual arts performance lack knowledge in contemporary performance,” writes Andy Horwitz, “and I think this presents a problem, as well as a challenge.”

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.”

“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.”

A linchpin of downtown New York dance and performance for more than 20 years, John Jasperse has developed a reputation for clever, intellectually rewarding works that leave audiences wowed. Truth, Revised Histories, Wishful Thinking, and Flat Out Lies, the newest piece from this American innovator, is seasoned with his distinct humor—and incorporates a childhood passion for magic tricks. Exploring the…