Spanish Dance

and why i love trisha brown


Someone mentioned in passing that the Trisha Brown Company was performing at the Park Avenue Armory. I haven't seen the company in quite some time so I immediately went online to check out the prices and details and decided, what the heck, you only live once--- why not splurge $45 on a ticket to see an extraordinary dance company.


Tomorrow evening I will see Astral Converted and, after tonight's lecture by art historian, Susan Rosenberg, I am super excited.


Rosenberg, who is a professor of Art History, is currently writing a book on Trisha's body of work. This is also exciting news. There has been a lot of writing on Judson and the advent of post-modern dance but not nearly as much, thus far, on Brown's work specifically. During the lecture, Rosenberg spoke about the artistic relationship between Trisha Brown and John Cage. Cage was a mentor to Trisha and she commissioned him to compose the score to Astral Converted, which premiered in 1991.


So, why I love Spanish Dance?


During the lecture, Rosenberg played the brief dance that features the waify yet sensuous female company members, hip swaying to the music of Bob Dylan. It is so simple yet reveals a subtle sense of wit and sensuality. I have always quite loved this dance. Trisha's movement is so supple and fluid and is comparable, in my mind, to water.


I looked forward to seeing the performance tomorrow night. Tickets are on sale and going fast. The show plays through the weekend. 


For more information: http://www.armoryonpark.org/index.php/programs_events/detail/trisha_brown_dance_company/


http://www.trishabrowncompany.org/


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In other news, I have been recovering old poetry and writings and journal entries. It is strange that memories resurface at unusual moments in one's life. I feel very close to things that happened many years ago and not as close to things that have happened recently. The malleability of time is that there is no linear marking of it. It is something that is circular and seeps within.


In several weeks I will depart New York for a few days and hope to swim in the Nantucket sound once more. I hope to see beauty in all I see. In the cranberry bogs and pinkish sunsets. I hope to walk the trails-- alone-- to become used to being alone since that is all we are.


I watched this documentary on Netflix: The Woodmans. The Woodmans explores the artistic family and the suicide-loss of the photographer, Francesca Woodman. It was a beautiful and haunting documentary. Toward the end, Betty Woodman, Francesca's mother, states this about her art (she is a potterer and has made a lot of functional and aesthetic work over the past few decades):

I talk about this sense of memory in my work and the sense of memory in making art and that all art is, for me, about remembering and about memory.

I think this quote aptly sums up the documentary and also my current sentiments about art and even life as art. This summer passes quickly and I am feeling a bit disconnected from the world around me. I assume that, too, will pass.


melissa