Revolt and Celebration

The sixties were a time of revolt and celebration; full of self-discovery, experimentation and acceptance of creative statements. With the Vietnam war, came protests and backlash against the U.S. government. A sense of liberation and social change were inevitable, bringing about creativity from the American people. The liberation moved art away from the literal and narrative form, merging into concept and abstractness. For Trisha Brown, this became a dramatic shift in her choreography. Simplicity of gesture, technology and architecture became apparent in her work. Social attention to industry in the seventies influenced her to the use of mechanical gesture and structural logic. Brown used complex mathematical and conceptual systems in connection to chance structures. The social changes that the sixties brought to Brown's work challenged her to use a communal, pedestrian and minimalistic quality to her choreography.

Lineage, influences, and collaboration

Trisha Brown was born and raised in a pristine forested area in Aberdeen, Washington. She was an athletic child; always playing sports and climbing trees. Her early years she performed tap dance, ballet and acrobatics. She eventually began dancing in jazz routines throughout her high school years. She attended Mills College in Oakland and there studied modern with Martha Graham and improvisation with Anna Halprin. She attended summer programs at Connecticut College working with Jose Limon, Louis Horst and Merce Cunningham. She graduated from Mills College in 1958 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. Anna Halprin was a very big influence on Browns technique and improvisations. Her technique specialized in the vocabulary of the body in movement. She focused on improvisation, problem solving, use of space, rhythmic use of muscular weight of movement and manner of execution. This also later influenced her use of space through site specific work, "Man Walking Down the Side Of a Building" and "Drift". Another influence Halprin had on Brown was fusing pedestrian movement and chance structures. Chance structures included childhood games and every day tasks given to dancers. At the time she also worked with other artists and choreographers such as Simone Forti, Yvonne Rainer, Terry Riley, Robert Morris and others. In addition, she began working with Robert Dunn at the Cunninham studio in New York. Throughout her years as founder and artistic director of the Trisha Brown Company (formed in 1970) she performed and collaberated with other artists such as Steve Paxton, musicians and visual artists Robert Rauschenburg, Robert Ashley, Laurie Anderson and Peter Zummo. Her influences and inspirations changed vastly over time and her work has evolved to great places and new innovative creations. Her work today continues to inspire and motivate dancers and choreographers of our time.