Trisha Brown Dance Company

Part of the 2009 Spring Season

Apr 29—May 2 at 7:30pm

Trisha Brown Dance Company
Choreography by Trisha Brown

"Strong emotional resonances and a sense of mystery arise from the dancers' delicate actions…provokes thunderous, ecstatic applause."
—Dance Magazine on O złożony/ O composite

A founding member of the revolutionary Judson Dance Theater, Trisha Brown is an icon of contemporary dance who, for five decades running, has continued to innovate, masterfully traversing the disparate worlds of downtown dance, ballet, opera, and the visual arts. At the center of it all: her rippling, quietly heroic movement.

Last at BAM with L’Orfeo (1999 Spring Season), Brown returns with a career-spanning program. In Planes, a marvelously vertical dance, an impressionistic film of New York fills a wall which three dancers scale with determination. Equally enthralling is the 1979 masterwork Glacial Decoy, a gorgeous rush of entrances and exits set within Robert Rauschenberg's black-and-white décor.

Commissioned by the Paris Opera Ballet and performed by three of its principals, O złożony /O composite (2004), in its US premiere, is a classical/modern fusion with liquid gestures—at once evocative and mysterious—with an affecting score by Laurie Anderson and a set by painter Vija Celmins. Completing the program is the world premiere of L'Amour au théâtre, a Baroque-influenced dance work that will serve as the creative foundation for an operatic evening featuring music by Jean-Phillipe Rameau premiering in 2010.


BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
Running time: 110min with intermission

Subscription tickets: $16, 28, 36
(Full price: $20, 35, 45)

The New York Times Review of Trisha Brown Dance Company
"Invariably sensuous, characterized by inventive wit and often uncommonly interesting, the quadruple bill of Trisha Brown's choreography at the Brooklyn Academy of Music ranges from a revival of a rare 1968 work to a world premiere." More

Poetry.org Page on Czeslaw Milosz
Learn more about the Nobel Prize winning poet whose poem "Ode to a Bird" is featured in O złożony/O composite. More

Poetry.org Page on Edna St. Vincent Millay
Learn more about the celebrated author whose poem "Renascence" is featured in O złożony/O composite. More

The New York Times Feature on Trisha Brown
"40 years of Trisha Brown creations, on stage and on paper..." More

Trisha Brown Dance Company
Learn more about the "grande dame of postmodern dance." More

Hippolyte et Aricie
Rameau's great opera (1733) is the subject of a Trisha Brown work in progress, previewed during her 2008 Next Wave Festival performance. More

Trisha Brown Bows Out
The International Herald Tribune on the last performance of Trisha Brown the dancer. More

Article: The Breadth of Trisha Brown (PDF)
BAMbill article about Trisha Brown. More

The New York Times article: Misha and Trisha, Talking Dance
Excerpts from a tape-recorded dialogue between Misha and Trisha about dance, life, photography and golf. More

Laurie Anderson's Homepage
Learn more about the groundbreaking artist and composer of the music for O złożony /O composite. More

PBS American Masters on Robert Rauschenberg
Learn more about the revolutionary visual artist responsible for the décor in Glacial Decoy. More

TATE ETC. interview with Vija Celmins
Learn more about the visionary artist responsible for the set of O złożony /O composite. More