Trisha Brown Takes a Step Back

It was announced this week that from here forward Trisha Brown will leave the day-to-day management of her company to two of her longtime dancers and collaborators, Diana Madden and Carolyn Lucas. What had become increasingly apparent in public appearances was confirmed: Ms. Brown’s health and ability to communicate has been compromised by a series of mini-strokes in the last few years. She will take on the title of Founding Artistic Director and Choreographer and, the company assures, remain very much involved. (Two of the pieces currently being performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, it should be pointed out, were made in the last year.)  Meantime, the company will undertake a similar process to the one mapped out by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in 2009: a worldwide tour of Brown’s pieces for the stage,  a retrospective at the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA,  the development of a new model for future stagings of her work, and the completion of a detailed and interactive archive of sets, costumes, scores, and video materials. The future of the company itself has not been decided. As the company announcement points out, “since the early 1980’s, Brown has documented every step in her creative process on video.” Someday, this footage will become an essential tool for those hoping to present her works. Meanwhile,  as the company points out, Brown is very much involved this massive project. At the moment, BAM is presenting an evening of her works, including the two that she has declared to be her final dances: I’m going to toss my arms—if you catch them they’re yours and Les Yeux et l’âme. Apollinaire Scherr reviewed them, vividly, for the Financial Times.

And here is a piece in the Times explaining the company’s plans.