Visual artists and dancers have long taken cues from each other. Pablo Picasso constructed sets and designed costumes for the Ballet Russes in Paris. The Bauhaus painter Oskar Schlemmer\u2019s Triadisches Ballett \u2013 first staged in 1920s Stuttgart, Germany \u2013 is considered a prototype of performance art. Andy Warhol pumped helium into mylar pillows for the backdrop of Merce Cunningham\u2019s RainForest dance, a piece depicting Cunningham\u2019s childhood home of the Pacific north-west.<\/p>\n
But only one artist danced on roller skates.<\/p>\n
Robert Rauschenberg, 1953. Photograph: Robert Rauschenberg<\/p>\n
Robert Rauschenberg, who died in 2008 at age 82, is best known for what he called his \u201ccombines\u201d \u2013 painting-sculpture hybrids made up of found and repurposed trash picked up on New York<\/a> streets. He also orbited the dance world, palling around with Cunningham and Trisha Brown, two giants in the downtown New York postmodern scene.<\/p>\n Rauschenberg\u2019s 1963 piece Pelican \u2013 named for the 8ft parachute the dancers\u2019 wear on their backs like wings \u2013 holds an almost mythic space in some imaginations. Only a short video clip<\/a> and few black-and-white photos survive of the original dance, which was performed by two men on roller skates and one ballerina on pointe. It\u2019s an audacious concept, one that could only be conjured during the freewheeling days of 1960s Greenwich Village.<\/p>\n Last week, the Trisha Brown Dance<\/a> Company reimagined Pelican for the first time, fusing what is known from archival research with new additions by choreographer Tara Lorenzen and the piece\u2019s three dancers, Ashley Hod, Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener.<\/p>\n The event took place at a benefit for the company staged at Xanadu, a roller skating rink in Brooklyn. \u201cNo one has ever reconstructed Pelican before, and everyone\u2019s always wanted to,\u201d Mitchell told the Guardian. \u201cThis work is not pedestrian at all. It\u2019s pretty virtuosic in a way, and very high stakes.\u201d<\/p>\n Silas Riener (front), Ashley Hod (left) and Rashaun Mitchell (back) perform Pelican. Photograph: Maria Baranova<\/p>\n Pelican\u2019s existence is entirely accidental, born out of a typo in a 1963 arts festival program that erroneously credited<\/a> Rauschenberg as a choreographer. He had never staged a dance but decided to give it a go, presenting Pelican later that year.<\/p>\n The painter performed in the piece himself, later saying he learned how to skate for the occasion. \u201cSince I didn\u2019t know much about actually making a dance, I used roller skates as a means of freedom from any kind of inhibitions that I would have,\u201d Rauschenberg said<\/a>. Merce Cunningham company dancer Alex Hay, the other dancer on skates, would later succinctly put<\/a> it: \u201cWe didn\u2019t collide or fall down or anything like that. I guess that was good.\u201d<\/p>\n Much of what was performed at Xanadu in 2026 was created after the team sifted through photos and notes left behind in Rauschenberg and Brown\u2019s archives. \u201cWe approached it in a forensic way,\u201d Riener said. \u201cWe all came to it with the shared sensibility of, let\u2019s get as much out of what we know to exist, and then fill in the gaps.\u201d<\/p>\n Pelican is a trust exercise. The dancers must rely on themselves and their training to stay upright on four wheels. They also put faith in each other during the dance\u2019s climax, when all three bodies join together. The two skaters hold hands and encircle the ballerina; the effect is like watching a music box come to life.<\/p>\n Riener and Mitchell wore roller skates, while Hod danced on pointe. \u2018You feel a lot about a person through their contact when you\u2019re partnering with them,\u2019 said Riener. Photograph: Maria Baranova<\/p>\n Mitchell and Riener are a couple. The pair met Hod on the plane down to Florida where they rehearsed Pelican at the Rauschenberg Foundation headquarters, which comprises the artist\u2019s former home and studio. (Rauschenberg spent the last years of his life on the secluded Captiva Island.)<\/p>\n \u201cThere was this rapid attempt at building some rapport together,\u201d Riener said. \u201cYou feel a lot about a person through their contact when you\u2019re partnering with them, and Ashley is a rock solid, calm person, which she probably developed through being in the New York City Ballet.\u201d (Hod is a soloist in the company.)<\/p>\n Pelican\u2019s one-night-only revival took place on a Monday night during a sweltering heatwave; the audience sat in folding chairs placed on the perimeter of the rink. Mitchell and Riener gamely strapped on their 8ft parachutes. There was a heaviness to their costumes \u2013 the pair wore bulky gray sweatsuits, kneepads, and, oh yes, the skates \u2013 but they moved as if levitating.<\/p>\n The dance is an absurdist love story: these three people are totally looking out for each other, on skates. It\u2019s joyful to watch something succeed when all logic suggests it should fail. It recalls something Rauschenberg said in a 1982 interview with Brown: \u201cDance has an energy that makes you glad you\u2019re alive one more minute.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Visual artists and dancers have long taken cues from each other. 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