Spring Program

Let’s Talk About Bleeding

by Judith Sánchez Ruíz

A distillation of Sánchez Ruíz’s storied 30-year international career in performance and choreography, this piece draws on a composite of her artwork and writing, and was created in collaboration with all artists involved. Sánchez Ruíz's dance pieces are existential in nature, and tend to layer their subjects structurally like geologic stratum. Of Let’s Talk About Bleeding, Sánchez Ruíz writes, “It is a symphony of layers, a meta-verse in which multiple universes collide, seeming to exist simultaneously, yet viewed in segments. The work intends to convey the notion of moving backwards in time, recreating realities that make us question the arc of human existence. Half the scenes are reversed, underscoring the idea of reversing time itself and deepening an understanding of being. It is an architectural orgasm of poetical constellations.”

A former Trisha Brown Dance Company dancer, Judith Sánchez Ruíz was chosen as the Company's first artist to receive a choreographic commission for her mastery of structured improvisation, as improvisation was central to Trisha Brown's work. Since the debut of ENCAJE, her acclaimed solo, in 2017, Sánchez Ruíz has been using dance "radial vocabularies," techniques that produce unexpected movements, creating channels of improvisation in each dancer. It is, she says, "an emancipation from within in the way we perform." She is also the author of a choreographic tool she calls "100 legs," based on the recognition that each part of the human body has its own innate intelligence; it encourages movement located at opposite points within the dancer's body, which generates kinetic tension. These very physical vocabularies are designed to offer insightful and meaningful narratives and cohesive structures.

For M.G.: The Movie

by Trisha Brown

« For M.G.: The Movie, is the second piece in a cycle of work called "Back to Zero." What I mean by zero is the simple elemental actions of the body. I entered this cycle through vocabulary, seeking gesture and motion through subconscious impulses - as pure as possible, and unedited by the all-pervasive judgmental mind. One of the three basic phrases collaged in MG does achieve zero.

Michel Guy, the French Minister of culture (1974 - 1976) invited me to meet with him several times [and] we spoke of dance and art and his career and my career and where they intersect. The conversations would circle back and branch out… They seemed as if they were taking place outside of time, outside of the "what I already know." They lasted for hours. He had to adjust the blinds once or twice. I never knew what the meetings were about, and Michel died soon following.

My guiding principles in MG (which is for Michel Guy) were enigma, and time - not scientific time, but perception of time, and its inconsistency. »

-Trisha Brown

Photo : © Julieta Cervantes

Rogues

by Trisha Brown

Rogues is a poignant study in rhythm, timing, and kinesthetic transmission. Accompanied by an original score by Alvin Curran, the duet’s simple form marks a return to Brown’s exploration of unembellished gesture and pedestrian physicality.

Photo : © Christopher Lindsay