- Born:
- November 25, 1936, Aberdeen, Washington, U.S.
- Died:
- March 18, 2017, San Antonio, Texas (aged 80)
- Movement / Style:
- avant-garde
- postmodernism
Trisha Brown
-
Who was Trisha Brown?
Trisha Brown (1936â2017) was an influential American dancer and choreographer known for her avant-garde and postmodernist approach to dance, which emphasized pure movement and experimentation, often without music or traditional theatrical settings.
Brown's career took off after meeting choreographer Yvonne Rainer and becoming a founding member of the Judson Dance Theater in 1962. In 1970, she established the Trisha Brown Dance Company.
Her early experimental works include Leaning Duets, Walking on the Wall, and Roof Piece. Later, Brown incorporated design and music into her choreography, creating pieces like Glacial Decoy and Set and Reset. Brown also directed operas and choreographed Carmen. She received a MacArthur Foundation fellowship in 1991.
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What is a choreographer?
A choreographer is someone who practices the art of choreography, which involves creating and arranging dance movements into a structured and patterned sequence. Choreographers are considered the authors of their dances, similar to writers, composers, and painters.
Trisha Brown (1936â2017) was an American dancer and choreographer known for her avant-garde and postmodernist approach. Her work explored pure movement, often without music or traditional theatrical settings. Brown's early pieces, such as Walking on the Wall (1970) and Accumulating Pieces (1971), were experimental, and in the late 1970s, she began incorporating design and music into her choreography, as seen in Glacial Decoy (1979) and Set and Reset (1983).
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What kind of dances did Trisha Brown create?
Trisha Brown, an avant-garde and postmodernist American choreographer, experimented with pure movement, sometimes without music or traditional theatrical settings.
Some of her early experimental pieces include Leaning Duets and Falling Duets (1968-1971), which explored dancers supporting each other, and Walking on the Wall (1970), where dancers moved while hanging in harnesses. Accumulating Pieces (1971) involved building a dance from a series of gestures, and Roof Piece (1973) used dancers on different roofs following each other's movements.
Later, Brown incorporated design and music, presenting pieces like Glacial Decoy (1979), Set and Reset (1983), and If You Couldnât See Me (1994). She also directed operas and created her last dance in 2011.
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How did Trisha Brown influence modern dance?
Trisha Brown significantly influenced modern dance through her avant-garde and postmodernist approaches, which emphasized pure movement and experimentation. As a founding member of the Judson Dance Theater in 1962, she helped pioneer a style that broke away from traditional techniques, exploring themeless and plotless dances that reflected dancersâ internal rhythms.
Her early experimental pieces, such as Walking on the Wall (1970) and Roof Piece (1973), challenged conventional theatrical space and movement. Later, Brown incorporated design and music into her work, creating pieces like Glacial Decoy (1979) and Set and Reset (1983), which solidified her reclassification as a postmodern choreographer.
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What is the Trisha Brown Dance Company known for?
The Trisha Brown Dance Company, formed in 1970, is known for its avant-garde and postmodernist explorations of pure movement, often without music or traditional theatrical settings. Brown's early experimental pieces, such as Leaning Duets and Walking on the Wall, involved dancers testing each otherâs strength and moving in harnesses perpendicular to a wall. Later, Brown incorporated design and music, presenting pieces like Glacial Decoy and Set and Reset in traditional theaters. As a postmodern choreographer, Brown, influenced by Merce Cunningham, believed ordinary movement could be used in dance, replacing conventional steps with simple movements like walking and running.
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Can you name a famous dance piece by Trisha Brown and describe what makes it unique?
Set and Reset (1983) is a signature piece by Trisha Brown, blending avant-garde dance with postmodern elements. It featured costumes and film clips by Robert Rauschenberg and a score by Laurie Anderson. Brown, influenced by Merce Cunningham, explored pure movement, often divorcing it from music and traditional theatrical space. Set and Reset exemplifies this approach, incorporating design and music into her choreography while experimenting with form and structure. The dance is known for its improvisational feel and unpredictable movements, reflecting the dancersâ internal rhythms and interactions.
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Trisha Brown (born November 25, 1936, Aberdeen, Washington, U.S.âdied March 18, 2017, San Antonio, Texas) was an American dancer and choreographer whose avant-garde and postmodernist work explores and experiments in pure movement, with and without the accompaniments of music and traditional theatrical space.
Brown studied modern dance at Mills College in Oakland, California (B.A., 1958). Her style began developing after she met choreographer Yvonne Rainer in 1960; together they became founding members of the experimental Judson Dance Theater in 1962. From 1970 through 1976 Brown was also a founding member of the improvisational Grand Union, and in 1970 she formed her own company, the Trisha Brown Dance Company, which was an all-female dance company until 1979.
Brown was influenced by the avant-garde style developed most prominently by Merce Cunningham during the 1960s and â70s. Although grounded in Martha Grahamâs technique (Cunningham had been a student of Grahamâs), avant-garde dance evolved as a reaction to the more structured and formal classical ballet and classical modern dance. Avant-garde dancers believed that dance could be divorced from music, that dances could be themeless and plotless, and that dance could also reflect the dancerâs internal rhythms.
During this period Brown developed several experimental pieces. Her first, Leaning Duets and Falling Duets, choreographed from 1968 to 1971, involved dancers supporting and testing each otherâs strength. In Walking on the Wall (1970) dancers moved while hanging in harnesses perpendicular to a wall. In Accumulating Pieces (1971) the dance was built up from a series of discrete gestures, each gesture building on the previous one. Her Roof Piece (1973) in New York City employed 15 dancers, each on a different Manhattan roof, following each otherâs sequence of movements while the audience watched from another roof. At this time Brown also did Man Walking down the Side of a Building (1970) outside a lower-Manhattan warehouse; Spiral (1974), in which the dancers were parallel to the ground while walking down trees in a Minneapolis, Minnesota, park; and the quartet Locus (1975), a piece that had no costumes or lighting effects.
In the late 1970s and â80s, Brown began to incorporate design and music into her pieces and to work in traditional theatres instead of outdoors. Reclassified as a postmodern choreographer, she presented such pieces as Glacial Decoy (1979), which featured a backdrop of black-and-white photos by Robert Rauschenberg; Set and Reset (1983), with costumes and film clips by Rauschenberg and a score by Laurie Anderson; and If You Couldnât See Me (1994), a solo in which Brownâs back is to the audience for most of the performance. Her later works include M.O. (1995), which was set to Johann Sebastian Bachâs The Musical Offering, and Present Tense (2003), a collaboration with artist Elizabeth Murray that included music by John Cage. I love my robots (2007), which featured robots made of cardboard tubes, drew praise for its wit and poignancy.
Brown directed several operas and choreographed Carmen (1986). Suffering from vascular dementia, she created her last dance in 2011. Her numerous honours include a MacArthur Foundation fellowship (1991).