Trisha Brown Dance Company at the Joyce Theater.
I’ve been waiting for this show since I last saw Trisha Brown at Fall for Dance!
A theme of modern dance is weight shifts. In all three choreographies today, Trisha explored and pushed the boundary of not just weight shifts by a dancer but weight sharing between dancers. She showed us smooth, beautiful, and elegant transitions, lifts, counterbalances, and dynamics — that felt both natural and surprising. Natural because the dancers moved as if they were guided by nothing other than gravity. Surprising because the gentle gravity built up to powerful momentum, and momentum shifted seamlessly from dancer to dancer.
I love her use of groups of dancers, especially the section when all ten company dancers moved together in “Groove and Countermove”. The dancers were never in sync, yet they were keenly aware of each other’s presence, moved with each other, as if all ten bodies were connected as one.
I also enjoyed the small section in “L’amour au Théâtre” when Cecily Campbell, Kimberly, Leah Ives, and Amanda Kmett’Pendry formed beautiful visuals and patterns.
The flutist in “Geometry of Quiet” did an incredible job supplementing the movements with unusual sounds that resembled heavy breathing, among other notes. Other than being unusual, however, I didn’t feel the music contributed significantly to the choreography.