Two pieces of postmodern dance by the groundbreaking Trisha Brown Dance Company, choreographed by Trisha Brown and Noé Soulier
A pioneer of postmodern dance, Trisha Brown’s work forever changed the landscape of contemporary performance. Trisha Brown Dance Company continues to expand its creative vision with its second-ever commission, a new work by French choreographer Noé Soulier, titled In the Fall (2023). The program is followed by one of Brown’s iconic works, Working Title (1985), characterized by her ability to push the limits of her dancers’ athleticism and stamina. Elevating abstract dance to theatrical proportions, Brown’s timeless works solidify her place as one of the most influential choreographers of her time.
In the Fall (2023) choreographed by Noé Soulier
In the Fall captures the physical act of falling, connecting to themes in Brown’s choreographies. Soulier is interested in the moments of falling where the body has a certain level of control, yet remains inevitable when paired with momentum. In this piece, the falls are stretched in time to the point where they become something else. Dancers slowly extend a body part in space, transforming their body until they reach a position where they cannot go any further. They pass this tipping point and fall.
“The legacy of Trisha Brown's work lies not only in the pieces she left us but also in the intimacy of the bodies of the performers who helped create it over time. The history of dance is not only the history of works, but perhaps above all, the history of ways of rehearsing, warming up, and moving: the history of unique relationships with one's own body, invented by dancers and choreographers together. What interests me deeply about creating a piece for the Trisha Brown Dance Company today is confronting the approach to movement that I'm developing with the unique way of engaging with movement shared by this group of dancers. In many ways, my choreographic vocabulary differs from that of Trisha Brown. Where she reveals the fundamental forces at work in the body with extraordinary clarity and fluidity, I explore inorganic transitions, the gap between intention and gesture, effort and contraction. Despite these apparent contrasts, my approach to movement bears the stamp of Trisha Brown. Even in what distinguishes it, it enters into a dialogue with the incredible renewal of the choreographic field that Trisha Brown helped to bring about.”
-Noé Soulier, January 2022
Working Title (1985) choreographed by Trisha Brown
A precursor to Lateral Pass (1985), Working Title was originally presented as a work-in-progress, with different units of the choreography combined and rearranged for each new performance. Newly commissioned costumes by Elizabeth Cannon resonate with Nancy Graves’ original designs and focus attention on the dance’s collage of asymmetrical and unpredictable traveling patterns.
“[The work] went on to be a resource for years…broken patterns, making a traveling phrase…I was thinking about my childhood (when I ran through the forest over) moss and mud and hardwood and rotten wood. If you’re going fast, you just have to pick where you place your feet. It is a child’s first experience of running fast. But it is not going to be your basic one-two-three, two-two-three, three-two-three. It has totally asymmetrical and unpredictable traveling patterns. It’s an example of something I went on to explore later. It became a subject for me.”
-Trisha Brown
Biographies
Trisha Brown Dance Company
Trisha Brown Dance Company (TBDC) is a postmodern dance company dedicated to the performance and preservation of the work of Trisha Brown and projects related to her legacy. Established in 1970, TBDC has toured throughout the world presenting work, teaching, and building relationships with audiences and artists alike. www.trishabrowncompany.org
The Trisha Brown Dance Company is supported by the Howard Gilman Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Imperfect Family Foundation. Other major support is provided by The Shubert Foundation, the Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, The Nathan Cummings Foundation, Jody and John Arnhold, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the Hampton Family Foundation of Oregon Community Foundation, and the Harkness Foundation for Dance.
The Trisha Brown Dance Company is also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
TBDC also extends special thanks to Trisha Brown Company Board Chair Dorothy Lichtenstein, The Trisha Brown Company Board of Trustees, and the Company’s Individual Donors.
Trisha Brown
Trisha Brown (Founding Artistic Director and Choreographer) was born and raised in Aberdeen, Washington, graduated from Mills College in Oakland, California, and studied with Anna Halprin before moving to New York City in 1961. Brown, along with like-minded artists, pushed the limits of choreography and changed modern dance forever. In 1970, Brown formed her company and explored the terrain of her adoptive SoHo. She engaged collaborators who are themselves leaders in music, theater, and the visual arts, including visual artists Robert Rauschenberg, Donald Judd, and Elizabeth Murray, and musicians Laurie Anderson, John Cage, and Alvin Curran, to name a few. With these partners, Brown has created an exceptionally varied body of over 100 dance works.
Brown is also an accomplished visual artist; her drawings have been seen in exhibitions, galleries, and museums throughout the world, she is represented by Sikkema Jenkins & Co. in NYC.
Trisha Brown is the first woman choreographer to receive the coveted MacArthur Foundation Fellowship “Genius Award.” She has been awarded many other honors including five fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the NY ‘Bessie’ Lifetime Achievement Award, the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, and the Dance/USA Honors Award. She has been named a Veuve
Clicquot Grande Dame, Commandeur dans l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the government of France.
Noé Soulier’s (he/him) work explores choreography and dance in different settings. The series of choreographic pieces including Removing, Faits et gestes, Second Quartet for the company L.A. Dance Project or The Waves, try to activate the physical memory of the spectators with movements that aim at objects or events that are absent, thus suggesting more than they display. In conceptual projects such as the book Actions, Movements, and Gestures or the performance Movement on Movement, he analyzes and describes different ways to conceive movements that aim to offer multiple ways to experience the body. The choreographed exhibition Performing Art, created at Centre Pompidou, reverses the usual position of dance in the museum by choreographing the installation of a selection of works from the collection by professional art handlers on stage. His site-specific work Passages was presented by Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels at The Arts Center in March 2024.
Born in Paris in 1987, Noé Soulier studied at the National Ballet School of Canada and PARTS in Brussels. He received a master’s degree in philosophy at La Sorbonne University (Paris IV) and took part in Palais de Tokyo’s residency program: Le Pavillon. In 2010, he won the first prize in the competition Danse Élargie, organized by Le Théâtre de la Ville in Paris and Le Musée de la danse. In July 2020, he became director of the Centre National de danse contemporaine in Angers.
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