Pay a Tribute to Trisha Brown

2017-04-09PresidentoftheInternationalDanceCommitteeoftheInternationalTheatreInstituteITI

当代舞蹈艺术研究 2017年2期

关键词：创作

President of the International Dance Committee of the International Theatre Institute ITI

[CY] Andromachi Dimitrladou Lindahl

On behalfof the International Dance Committee, I have the honor to present a tribute to the message author for the International Dance Day 2017, Mrs Trisha Brown,who unfortunately died on March 18th.

Trisha Brown belongs to the most important choreographers of our times. For over 50 years, she has been transforming the landscape of modern dance with her choreographic spirit. Her works communicate with a rare directness on the essence of movement, the constant flow of energy, the clarity of the choreographic pattern in space, the challenge to gravity, the physical awareness that surpasses materiality and become a moving meditation, a state of reflection, and a thinking body. Trisha Brown’s dance has purity, simplicity, selfsarcasm, humour, natural grace, intelligence, freedom,and familiarity.

She was born and raised in Aberdeen, Washington,a small town close to the Pacific with beautiful forests,lakes, and rivers as she recalls. Her first contact with dance was not what we call academic. It consisted from jazz, tap dancing, and acrobatics. It was later on that she graduated from the Mills College, and in the Connecticut College summer courses she studied with Jose Limon,Louis Horst, and Merce Cunningham. In 1960, she met Ann Harplin who introduced her to the dance improvisation. One year later, she moved to New York,where she immersed herselfin a community of artists,later known as the Grand Union of the legendary Judson Church Dance Theatre, who questioned the conventions of modern dance, challenged the existing perceptions of performance, and pushed the limits of choreography to an extent that changed modern dance forever.

In this context of experimentation and rebellion of the 1960s, Trisha Brown built her personal vocabulary through improvisation methods using tasks and systems.

In 1970, she formed her company and began producing works inspired by non-theatrical spaces, urban sites, and landscapes, such as “Man Walking Down the Side of a Building,” “Roof Piece,” or dances based on mathematical systems of accumulation like in “Accumulation” and in “Primary Accumulation” in 1972. It was also around this time that she began her collaboration with Robert Rauschenberg. In the 1980’s, she created many innovative productions, like the now iconic “Set and Reset,” with which a cycle of work she called Unstable Molecular Structures, closed. This cycle epitomized the fluid yet unpredictably geometric style that remains a hallmark of her work. Then, she began her relentlessly athletic Valiant Series, pushing her dancers to their physical limits and exploring gender specific movement. Next came the elegant and mysterious “Back to Zero Cycle” in which she pulled back from external virtuosity to investigate unconscious movement. In 1994, she collaborated for the final time with Rauschenberg to create “IfYou Couldn’t See Me,” in which she danced entirely with her back to the audience. Ever keen to reinvent herselfand experiment,Trisha Brown turned her attention to classical music initiating what is known as her Music Cycle. “I worked for a long time in silence,” she was saying. “My research was focused on structure, space, dynamics. Later I discovered that polyphony in classical music has a structure similar to my works.” Her choreography to J. S Bach’sThe Musical of fering—“M. O.” —in 1995 was hailed as a masterpiece by Anna Kisselgof fof theNew York Times, leading her to immerse herselfmore in operatic productions and to choreograph and direct countless high quality operas.

Her ever exploring spirit lead her to experiment with the new technologies, creating the witty and sophisticated“I Love My Robots” in 2007 in collaboration with the Japanese artist and robot designer Kenjiro Okazaki.

Brown’s last work was “I’m Going to Toss My Arms—IfYou Catch Them They’re Yours” in 2011, in collaboration with visual artist Burt Barr, whose striking set is dominated by fans. As well as a prolific choreographer, Trisha Brown was an accomplished visual artist whose drawings have been seen in exhibitions, galleries, and museums throughout the world. She has created over 100 dance works since 1961, and was the first woman choreographer to receive the McArthur Foundation Fellowship Award“Genius Award.” She has been awarded many other honours, including five fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1988, she was named Chevallier dans L’ Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the government of France and was eventually elevated to the level of Commandeur. At the invitation of President Bill Clinton,she had served on the National Council for the Arts and Letters from 1994 to 1997. In 2003, she was honoured with the National Medal of Arts and received numerous honorary doctorates. She was an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and in 2011 was awarded the prestigious Dorothy and Lillian Gish Price for making “an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind’s enjoyment and understanding of life.”

Trisha Brown died on March 18th after a lengthy illness. As one of the most acclaimed and influential choreographers and dancers of her time, Trisha’s ground breaking work forever changed the landscape of dance,and her contribution will always be remembered and honoured by the generations to come.

我荣幸地代表国际舞蹈委员会向2017国际舞蹈日献词人崔莎· 布朗女士致敬。

崔莎 · 布朗是我们这个时代最重要的编舞家之一。在过去的50多年里，她的编舞精神使现代舞蹈的风貌面目一新。她的作品有一种罕见的直接、与动作核心、能量的不断流动、清晰的空间编舞模式、挑战地心引力以及超越物质性载体的身体意识对话，成为一种移动着的冥想、一种反思的状态、一个正在思考的身体。崔莎· 布朗的舞蹈纯粹、质朴，透露着自我讽刺、幽默，有着自然的优雅、灵性、自由和熟悉感。

她出生并成长于美国华盛顿州阿伯丁市。阿伯丁市是一个靠近太平洋的小镇，在她的记忆里，那儿有美丽的森林、湖泊和河流。她最初接触舞蹈，是从爵士、踢踏舞和杂技表演开始的。在那之后，她就读并毕业于米尔斯学院，然后开始系统学舞。她曾参加康涅狄格学院暑期课程，跟随荷西· 李蒙、路易斯· 霍斯特和默斯· 坎宁汉学习舞蹈。1960年，她认识了安娜· 哈尔普林，第一次了解了舞蹈即兴创作。一年以后，她移居纽约，投入艺术家团体中，即后来大名鼎鼎的贾德逊教堂舞蹈剧院的大联盟舞团。这些艺术家们质疑现代舞蹈的传统风格，挑战现有的表演感知，突破编舞的极限，永远改变了现代舞。