Trisha Brown's dancers capture the spirit of the music

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Saturday, May 22, 2004

Trisha Brown's dancers capture the spirit of the music

By R.M. CAMPBELL
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER DANCE CRITIC

Trisha Brown's choreography can be so intellectually rigorous, it is easy to forget how cool she can be. And unexpected.

DANCE REVIEW

TRISHA BROWN DANCE COMPANY

WHEN: Through tonight

WHERE: Meany Hall

TICKETS: $34, with student/senior discounts; 206-543-4880

In works performed by her company Thursday night at Meany Hall, there was a span of 20 years: "Set and Reset," one of the iconic pieces of the post-modern era, from 1983, to the American premiere of "Present Tense," choreographed last year. Also on the program was the 2000 "Groove and Countermove," the final section in Brown's jazz trilogy.

Brown once described her movement as "the line of least resistance." It is easy to see that in "Set and Reset," with its relaxed torsos, loose limbs and everyday gestures made hip and easy. But it is also there in "Groove and Countermove," with its diverse combinations of sun and shade.

The work is the first time Brown used a jazz composer -- namely Dave Douglas. Music sometimes seems an ancillary thing to Brown, not quite to the degree of Merce Cunningham, but more setting the tone of the work rather than a reflection of it. However, in "Groove," she seems genuinely involved in what Douglas has to say. And he has a lot to say in a variety of stylistic poses, sometimes quite different from one another. Indeed, I might venture that when Douglas is the least interesting, so is Brown.

However, she captures the spirit of the music, again with those loose, often elusive bodies and sudden turns of the phrase. With Terry Winters' set -- a large backdrop of black-and-white abstract drawings, a kind of elegant version of Cy Twombly -- and Douglas' jazz score -- sultry to dissonant, with some late romantic riffs -- Brown has woven a clear-eyed piece that makes one think, the contemporary world is not so bad after all. This is not Paul Taylor optimism, all free-flowing and easy, but denser with moments of frantic energy and tension, all readily resolved, sometimes with wit.

I didn't like "Present Tense" as much, even with Elizabeth Murray's evocative backdrop. Perhaps John Cage's music for prepared piano got a little tiresome after awhile. That said, Brown's choreography had plenty of interest. I didn't quite see the "emotional narrative" referred to in the program notes: Her dancers still seem to occupy mostly their own space, even when they are closely grouped together. What was so curious, and compelling, were the deft ways in which dancers joined together, linking limbs or upper bodies to combine forces, only to pull away from one another. There was something daring about the movement, in part, I think, it seemed to come out of thin air.

"Set and Reset" brought Brown to national attention and gave her career genuine momentum. It is quintessential Brown, not only because of its inventive choreography but her collaboration with leading artists of the time: the painter Robert Rauschenberg, at one time chairman of her board of trustees, and the composer Laurie Anderson. How well the three suit the other. It may not seem as edgy as it must have in 1983 -- the years of Ronald Reagan in the White House -- because it is now a modern classic, in the best sense of the word.

Brown's company is small -- nine dancers -- but they all are treated as soloists and dance like it.

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