'Set and Reset' reviews 'Present Tense' reviews 'Groove and Countermove' reviews recent Trisha Brown reviews more Renee Renouf reviews Discuss this review (Open for at least 6 months)

Ninety minutes of genuinely elegant dancing ensued by nine handsome willowy artists whose technique was remarkable for its virtuosity subordinated to the most casual, deliberately off-handed series of loose-limbed gestures. If this was the unclassifiable of Brown’s choreography,then I can understand critics’ frustration. I was enthralled, awed; mystified by what I witnessed, I concur it is unclassifiable.

Set and Reset commences with the audience being able to see into the wings while center stage is dominated by an oblong and a upside down cone construction on either side, decorated by black and white newsreel montages. As the curtain rises, we hear the stentorian intonations of the newsreel announcers of the ‘40's; comments and images on the three constructions really match, and they rise up sufficiently so that the dancers can move under them with relative freedom. As I contemplate the images in my mind, I suddenly see the phrases “two dunces and a square” and “round pegs and square holes” float into view and say to myself, “that just may be it!” But this doesn’t take include the loose, diaphonous costuming, tunics and pants,covered with the same gradations of grey, black and white images worn by the dancers. Is Brown telling us, however casual the swinging arm and turning torso, the torso thrust forward as if completing the pitch of a baseball, we are all of a piece in this complexity of fact, daily event, cool or leisurely movement?

Present Tense combined deep vibrant orange tunics with red trousers, and two dancers with yellow tunics banded in red, loose, easy to move in, some without sleeves. At the beginning and end one smallish, wiry framed man moved along stage front right, in parabola-like fashion, again in loose-limbed finessing, executing one or two turns around himself and his torso which were as phenomenal, as rapid and mind- boggling as a passe brise en tournant in the ballet vocabulary.

The John Cage score was not nearly so atonal as I remember his music, but seemed to flirt with patterns of Indonesian gamelans; the dancers’ movements shifted from faintly recognizable mudras and on occasion seemed to reference tai ch’i postures.

Groove and Countermove with its solid close fitting pastel tee shirts and trousers was more accessible to the audience, giving the dancers greater mass than their previous stage attire. The music, also, was something the audience could respond with visceral enjoyment; movement complimented the quirks and nuances with groupings and disbursals.

To their fingertips the dancers, individually and collectively, are talented, disciplined and clearly suited for Trisha Brown’s unusual choreography. What Brown has to offer, however, patently requires a visual cultivation over time, an aesthetic awareness not yet acquired. When Brown took a bow with the dancers, with her slender figure, abundant wavy hair of salt and pepper hue, I suddenly felt a clue to venture. If Brown takes walks in nature, she attempts to bring naturalness behind the proscenium arch with all its nuances, shifts and shades. Nature changes with the seasons and is never quite the same. If this is an accurate clue, there is a window for my next glimpse of the Trisha Brown Company.