Saturday, March 20, 2010
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.
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What does Brown think about her early work with equipment in relationship to the more traditional dances that were being made at that time? Why do you think she performed in unusual sites during the 60's. I think there was also an upheaval in the visual arts with events called "happenings". How did that influence her?
ReplyDeleteBrown was greatly influenced by happenings in the sixties because she began looking at her choreography in forms as events rather then a set of movement to perform. She wanted the audience to have an experience; encouraging their participation and breaking down the difference between "art" and "life". This also was her reasoning for her site specific work. She wanted to invite new definitions to her choreography. I can imagine that she was also influenced by her collaborations with the Grand Union Group as they took part in happenings in connection to their improvisations.
ReplyDeleteDid she ever re-visit her previous way of choreographing after the 60's? Also you sat in here Brown used complex mathematical and conceptual systems in connection to chance structures...could you explain more? What were these mathematical and conceptual systems? (I think a good example of her "thinking" system would be Floor of the Forest, but how would you describe it in words?)
ReplyDeleteMathematical and conceptual systems such as the The Locus Structure (the project we had done in class- using letters corresponding to a number connected to the cube drawing to form gestures) were in connection to chance structures. After she had choreographed "Set and Reset" she began evolving her choreography not soley based on the movement. She loved playing with how movement could assemble and reassemble, how gestures could bend, straighten, or rotate. A newer addition to her work the "Valient Series" as she calls it (a series of four dances), was an exploration of the way that men moved and used drawings to inspire her to form geometric shapes.
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