Saturday, October 12, 2013

Trisha Brown Dance Company @ Dance Umbrella - 11 Oct - Thought review

The company of nine dancers performed three 'proscenium works'.

Astral Convertible
Haaa I just love Trisha Brown's movement. It's so flowy.
When was this made? With the light towers installation, the soundscape music, the 'nothing to hide' blue unitards, the serious faces, the general aimlessness of it, it looks exactly like the image most people have of contemporary dance. Is this  hallmark of the sixities? Let me check my programme... oh wow it's from 1989!
It's funny how on Wednesday I saw that new Wayne McGregor work at Sadler's Wells, and I was so bored, yet tonight I am not. I mean the two works have interesting lighting and movement, no particular direction. But I guess Trisha Brown knows when to end it? [at 32 minutes rather than 1 hour and 15].
Some of those dancers are so cute.

Watermotor
It's only 3 minutes long. Let's focus on this one.
Funny.
So inventive. A ballet dancer couldn't do all that in three minutes. I couldn't do all that in flamenco in three minutes. It all feels so rigid compared to these shifts, and turns, and this flow, again.

I'm going to toss my arms - if you catch them they are yours
Oh some big fans. Is it going to be very windy? Are my eyes going to get really dry? [my friend points out that the fans face the wall so we should be ok]
Ah no you can't really feel them.
What are they wearing? It's like light paper? It's a shame that my niece decided to stop doing judo.
Oh the light white costume slowly gets detached with the wind. It's nice.
Look at those beautiful shapes.
My the dancers only wear swimming costumes (for the girls) and trunks (guys).
I love that moody a bit jazzy soundtrack.
I could watch this for hours.

Addition - 13 Oct: I have just listened to this podcast with novelist Nicholson Baker (no idea who he is but the description on the New Yorker website made him sound interesting and I thought it would make a nice listen while cooking dinner). At one point, the journalist asks him about the contemporary condition of being unable to focus, because there is so much stuff on the internet etc. Mr Baker talks about his morning routine:
he wakes up in the morning, drives to a waterfall near his house and reads something aloud. It slows him down. It becomes the only thing there is. 'I think a necessary pre-condition for the appreciation of art is the feeling that the thing that you are looking at, reading or listening to is all that there is for that moment. And you really have to give yourself to it.'
I think this is what happened to me during the third work. I was on the very front row, watching the dance, and it slowed me down, it was all there was, and it could have been all for hours, I wouldn't have minded.




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