Brown was a founding member of the Judson Dance Theater, the informal group that pioneered postmodern dance in the ’60s. A contemporary of John Cage and Yvonne Rainer, Brown made dance pieces that redefined the idea of “performing,” and became known as pedestrian movement, pushing ideas from Merce Cunningham to their logical conclusion.
Three historic works that Brown made in 1971 suggest much in their titles alone: Walking on the Wall, Roof Piece and Accumulation. Walking had dancers suspended in harnesses moving sideways along walls; Roof spread its dancers across 12 roofs on 10 SoHo blocks; Accumulation was a formal study in graduated movement, with repeated phrases building in complexity — like sentences that each time added one word.
Brown’s influence on dancers, artists and performance generally has been profoundly felt ever since.
In the ’80s, Brown collaborated with Robert Rauschenberg, Donald Judd and Laurie Anderson and her work Set and Reset (1983) became another canonical contribution to 20th century dance. With its simple movements that any modern dance student would recognize as foundational to the so-called “release technique,” a dance vocabulary still widely seen in new works today, Set and Reset was once deemed “the most beloved and irresistible work of postmodern dance,” by the Times.
Brown’s career spanned 40 years, with works for the Paris Opera Ballet, her own company and even Mikhail Baryshnikov to her credit. In 2002 she received the National Medal of the Arts.
Trisha Brown, Choreographer Who Redefined Performance, Dead at 80 [OBSERVER]
Trisha Brown, Choreographer and Pillar of American Postmodern Dance, Dies at 80 [New York
Times]