Trisha Brown Dance Company and Merce Cunningham Trust

The Trisha Brown Dance Company (TBDC), established in 1970, is dedicated to the performance and preservation of the work of Trisha Brown and projects related to her legacy. Brown engaged collaborators who are leaders in all artistic fields including visual artists Robert Rauschenberg and Donald Judd and musicians Laurie Anderson and John Cage. With these partners Brown created an exceptionally varied body of work, which the company has toured and presented throughout the world, building relationships with audiences and artists alike. TBDC has robust education and outreach programs that include workshops, master classes, and lectures. This is the TBDC’s third appearance at the Wex, with prior performances in 1990 and 1998.

Merce Cunningham continually pushed the boundaries of modern dance during his seventy-year career as one of the greatest American dance artists. The Merce Cunningham Trust, established in 2000, preserves Cunningham’s legacy and carries his work into the future. Cunningham’s collaborative spirit meant that he was always seeking the ways in which dance intersected with other disciplines. Through these experiments, most notably with his life partner John Cage, Cunningham came to the somewhat radical conclusion that music and dance could exist independently within the same performance. Throughout his illustrious career, Cunningham created 190 repertory dances, many of which are still being taught today. The Merce Cunningham Dance Company, which has been presented at the Wex many times, was first presented in the Wex’s inaugural season (1989–90) alongside Laurie Anderson and John Cage.