LPARA DPAR@ ` LTEXT ` >Brown, Trisha1936╨ dancer and choreographerBorn on November 25, 1936, in Aberdeen, Washington, Trisha Brown studied modern dance and graduated with a B.A. in dance from Mills College in Oakland, California. Her style began developing after she met Yvonne Rainer while studying with Anna Halprin in 1960, and together Brown and Rainer became two of the founding members of the experimental Judson Dance Theater in 1962. From 1970 through 1976, Brown was also one of the founding members of the improvisational Grand Union, and in 1970 she formed her own company, the Trisha Brown Dance Company, initially an all-female dance company.Brown was influenced by what was then called avant-garde dance, a style developed most prominently by Merce Cunningham during the 1960s and 1970s. Although this type of dance was grounded in Martha Graham╒s technique (Cunningham had been a student of Graham╒s), avant-garde dance evolved in reaction to the more structured and formal classical ballet and classical modern dance. Some of the underlying tenets of avant-garde dance were the beliefs that dance could be divorced from music, that dance was not merely a vehicle of expression for the choreographer but could be its own subject matter, that dances could be themeless and plotless, and that dancers on stage could move in ways that were unrelated to each other. In addition, Anna Halprin taught Brown and her other students to move in ways that attended to their bodies╒ internal rhythms.During this period Brown developed several experimental pieces. Her first, Leaning Duets and Falling Duets, choreographed from 1968 to 1971, involved dancers supporting and testing each other╒s strength. Walking on the Wall, 1970, showed dancers in an unexpected relationship with the environment: dancers moved while hanging in harnesses and while perpendicular to a wall. In Accumulating Pieces, 1971, the dance was built up from a series of discrete gestures, each gesture building on the previous one. Her Roof Piece, 1973, employed fifteen dancers, each on a different Manhattan roof, following each other╒s sequence of movements, while the audience watched from another roof. At this time she also did the quartet Locus, 1975, a piece that had no costumes or lighting effects; Man Walking Down the Side of a Building, outside a lower Manhattan warehouse; and Spiral, in a park in Minneapolis in which the dancers walked down trees and were parallel to the ground.By the late 1970s and 1980s, she began to incorporate design and music into her pieces and to work in traditional theaters instead of outdoors. Now classified as a postmodern choreographer, she went on to choreograph Glacial Decoy, 1979, which featured a backdrop of black and white photos designed by Robert Rauschenberg; Son of Gone Fishin╒ , 1981, with music by Robert Ashley; Set and Reset, 1983, with costumes and film clips by Rauschenberg and a score by Laurie Anderson; and Lateral Pass, 1985, a piece designed by sculptor Nancy Graves. Brown also produced an essay in Anne Livet╒s Contemporary Dance, 1978, and two videos, Set and Reset and Newark. ªstyl ` . ! ¬ 5¬ 5¬ 2 !I !I ▐ !I é 5¬ â !I C !I ▐ P !I ╪ 5¬ ┘ !I % !I D !I º !I ║ !I V !I i !I ▄ !I µ !I » !I ┤ !I ╡ !I ╢ !I ε !I !I @ !I F !I ⌐ 5¬ ¬ !I
