biography

Artistic director, choreographer and dancer Trisha Brown revolutionized modern dance with her movement investigations, challenging existing perceptions of what constitutes performance. For over half a century, first as part of the Judson Dance Theater and then with her own company, Brown has continuously shaped and expanded the idea of what it means to dance, seamlessly blending her movements with the environment, technology and other art forms such as writing and music. She has created nearly 100 dance works since 1961.

Brown made her mark early in her career creating dances for alternative spaces including rooftops and walls, and flirting with gravity, alternately using it and defying it. Her groundbreaking early work includes Man Walking Down the Side of a Building (1970), and Roof Piece (1971), which was performed last June at the High Line. In 1983, working with Laurie Anderson (a fellow Gish Prize recipient), Brown created the iconic Set and Reset, which established the fluid yet unpredictably geometric style that remains a hallmark of her work. Her most frequent collaborator was Robert Rauschenberg, with whom she created her signature solo work If You Couldn’t See Me (1994), which she danced entirely with her back to the audience.

In the 1990s, Brown turned her attention to classical music, choreographing the acclaimed M.O. to J.S. Bach’s monumental Musical Offering, among others. In 2000, Brown, joined with visual artist Terry Winters and composer Dave Douglas to create El Trilogy, danced to the sounds and structures of jazz music. The multi-talented Brown has also directed four operas, including Pygmalion (2010), for which she also designed the set. She most recently worked on a new piece that premiered last month at Théâtre National de Chaillot in Paris. She is also an accomplished visual artist and will have her next exhibition in December 2011 at Sikkema Jenkins & Co..