Piggy-back Review: Trisha Brown Dance Company
Claudia La Rocco has done half the work for us! Read her Times review of Trisha Brown Dance Company’s performance at Lincoln Center Out of Doors. C.C. also attended the event, held at the decrepit relic of 60′s utopian optimism, the Damrosch Park Bandshell.
Incidentally, a friend of mine and I happened upon the band shell after a nearby performance one evening a few weeks back. Starkly lit but tragically desolate, it seemed as if there hadn’t been a concert in the venue since the 60′s. The chairs stood in stoic rows, as if left behind by a sudden exodus (is that a telling simile?). We actually walked right up and onto the stage. There was no security to speak of. The bandshell itself is quite literally crumbling in places. If you wanted to, you could snag a piece of it as a memento. Given the conspicuous lack of attention this wonderfully archaic structure is getting, it’s surprising that Lincoln Center actually uses it at all. But when I showed up Tuesday night for the Lincoln Center Out of Doors performance, they had (like any last-minute tidier) draped the decrepitude in walls of black cloth, presumably to establish a neutral backdrop for the dance, but more likely to keep their dirty little secret undisclosed.
But I digress…
As the title of this post suggests, Trisha Brown’s work stands in proud territory between the post-modern diatribe of Merce Cunningham’s abstraction, and the neo-Classical formalism and theatricality of wunder-Queen, Mark Morris. No doubt she was influenced by the former and helped make way for the latter.
The connection to Merce emerged most conspicuously–and ironically–in the most recent work, Present Tense (2003), which used John Cage prepared piano pieces as its score. I will admit it was perhaps the musical score that directed my attention to the dance in a Mercean way. Here the movement seemed autonomous from the music, a la Merce. And the music itself was Cage, so, even the more reason that this piece would ring of Merce’s creative influence. So the music, combined with the treatment of the music, rang of the divine Miss M. But the movement itself was distinctly Brown; relaxed, fluid motion; casual with elements of modern (see flexed feet) and classical (see pointed toes). But again, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the music–distinctly Cage–was shaping the experience more than maybe Trisha Brown had intended; which makes me wonder if the music Merce chose (chooses) to use has always shaped how we perceive his dance even more than he wished it would.
But then during the two little etudes, Accumulation and Spanish Dance, both from the 70′s and both set to popular songs, one can’t help sense the underlying theatrical pastiche (I mean that in a good way) that separates Brown’s dance from the grandfather of po-mo (if we can be liberal). She achieves an unpretentious vernacularity that is theoretically targeted and entertaining. Which is where I also find a comparison with Mark Morris. Spanish Dance rings of a piece of Morris’ I saw a few years back; a Flamenco duet that Morris performed himself, acting as a stray in a bar that is suddenly seduced into a few bursts of Spanish frenzy. It’s structure is straight forward and its affects are pure amusement.
The more adventurous, if awkwardly titled work, Canto/Pianto (1997), was a balanced combination of the theatrical and the abstract. Based on the tale of Orfeus and set to Monteverdi’s opera, Orfeo, the work here was abstracted for the concert. Here there was some literal time-keeping with the music, but a lot not. Still, the classical elements here are enough to suggest a Morris influence, and am I right in believing this piece post-dates the bulk of Morris’ classically based dances? Not that this would be a knock against Brown. I like the idea of an artist who knows how to let things influence her without consideration for how people will perceive the action.
At any rate, the most satisfying part of Brown’s dance is the lithe, relaxed fluidity in the general demeanor of the dancers. They move with such ease that it inspired me to try walking around like that, just to see what it felt like. And oh, it felt good. And that carries across in the dance. The movement rarely comes through as strained or precariously balanced, as is often detectable in Merce’s practice. The lift-work as well is light and airy; almost effortless, but you know better. There seems to be a philosophical point that Brown makes in her dance, that in feeling good, and in catering the desire of physical ease, the body can still achieve notable artistic feats.
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