The College at Brockport’s Department of Dance presents two performances from the internationally acclaimed Trisha Brown Dance Company on Thursday and Friday, September 6 and 7, at 7:30 p.m. in the Hartwell Dance Theater in Hartwell Hall, Kenyon Street, on the Brockport campus. Tickets are $17/General, $12/Senior Citizens, Brockport Alumni, Faculty and Staff, and $9/Students. They will be available online at http://fineartstix.brockport.edu starting on August 20. The Tower Fine Arts Center Box Office will reopen on Monday, August 27, when tickets will be able to be purchased by phone at 395-2787, or in person at 180 Holley Street, Brockport. The performances will feature a question and answer session after the performance on Thursday, and a public reception after the performance on Friday.
While the company will be in residence in Brockport, they will be reaching out to the Rochester community through a master class for dance students at the University of Rochester, and with a lecture/demonstration that is open to the public on Wednesday, September 5, at 11:10 a.m. in the Rose L. Strasser Studio in Hartwell Hall on the Brockport campus.
According to professor emerita Jacquie Davis, who invited and coordinated the troupe’s visit to Western New York, the thing about Brown’s choreography is that “the dances all remain new, fresh, and vital, with an organic sensuality and clarity of form. And the dancers are stunningly beautiful.”
In the short opening piece, “Accumulation,” patterns of movements would develop, and then intrude upon each other, often conflicting with the pattern you were expecting. As Brown herself said in an interview, “When ninety-nine per cent of the body is moving to the right, I will stick something out to the left . . . to set up some sort of reverberation between the two.”
“Groove and Countermove,” part of a jazz trilogy, reveals an intricate world of counterpoint between one dancer and the company, the dance itself, Dave Douglas’ music, and the frenetic energy of the movement set against Terry Winters’ visual design. Whether engaged in bold unison phrases or catapulting each other through the air, the dancers create an intriguing environment, at once easy-going and vitally expressive.
In “Geometry of Quiet,” Brown’s second work set to the music of Salvatore Sciarrino, she matched the poignancy and delicacy of the music with choreography that implies a personal, emotional intimacy. The organic sounds of the flute seem to emanate from the sail-like banners that form the first theatrical set designed by Brown herself.
Rounding out the program will be two works from the 1970s, “Locus Trio,” and “Watermotor,” as well as one from the 1990s, “If you couldn’t see me.”
If tickets are still available at performance time, they will be available for purchase at the Hartwell Box Office one hour prior to each performance.
These performances are sponsored by New York State DanceForce with funding from the New York State Council on the Arts.
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