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Trisha Brown Dance CompanyOctober 2003 London, Sadler's Wells by Bruce Marriott |
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The evening started rather well - a mixed audience of both young and old, a full promenade section and a first piece, 20 years old, that both perplexed and encouraged choreographically, musically and aesthetically. Oh that it could have stopped there but sadly newer pieces intruded and the end I felt the Empress had few clothes. Some saw lovely clothes and clapped a great deal as the great lady took a final bow but it was not for me.
When I perceive perplexingly poor/weird dance and yet see others happy, I normally think of modern jazz parallels and Brown's final piece, Groove and Countermove, fits well being based on a Dave Douglas jazz score. There were thin movement pickings here, though occasionally some lines of dancers, stretching from front of stage to back, would cleverly mirror moments and raise the spirit for a few seconds. In general though dancers moved in sympathy neither with themselves or the music.
 Groove and Countermove © Chris Callis Perhaps a PhD student given access to a few weeks of time on a Cray supercomputer might prove that a particular 10 seconds of movement was related, by a 19th harmonic overtone, to a piece of the score 59 seconds before and 3 minutes and two seconds before that, but otherwise you would be hard-pressed to see much here. It was neither discordantly interesting or harmoniously interesting. Marvellous bodies doing un-marvellous movement and taking themselves desperately seriously (another modern jazz overtone). The best part was the backdrop of 24 rectangular black and white line doodles by Terry Winters.
The middle piece - Geometry of Quiet - was a little better. A sparse piece of music by Salvatore Sciarrino was matched by sparse, considered steps around an all-white set in which parachute silk occasionally extended from the white flats down each side. Overall it had a feeling of Tai Chi exercises with their slow deliberate movements. This is earnest and cerebral stuff, though occasionally lightened by dancers balancing on each others thighs and doing some silly walks. But Sadler's under Brown is no place to laugh - very un-PC.
 © Marc Ginot Set and Rest opened the show and was the best piece by some margin. A rectangle and two pyramids floated above the stage with Robert Rauschenberg images from the 20's onwards and music memorably from Laurie Anderson of cowbells and drums. The dancers - a delightful mix of sizes and shapes - skip, jump and scamper in loose pyjamas. The movement feeling is free and natural, though not as carefree as you might find with Paul Taylor. Somehow there is always a dance moment to grab the eye even if the music and set - both interesting - exist in some parallel universe (again that PhD student might identify the exact time shift involved).
So there you have it: Old Brown is the Old Black and new Brown is... not really.
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