UMS Night School: Curious About Dance – Session 3 Recap

Editor’s note: This post is a part of a series of by U-M student and UMS intern Hillary Kooistra, who’s covering our free UMS Night School: Curious About Dance workshop series.

Presenting: The Trisha Brownie Dance Company

After a whirlwind week of dance, we had plenty to discuss during our latest Night School session. We had two special treats on Monday evening: the first was the opportunity to hear Clare Croft, our trusty Night School leader, speak with Jim Leija, UMS Director of Education & Community Engagement, about her new book, Dancers as Diplomats: American Choreography in Cultural Exchange. The second treat, of course, came in the form of cupcakes, which we enjoyed after the discussion. Before we crossed overseas to learn about dance’s contribution to cultural diplomacy, we focused on some exciting moments in American dance, with a reflection on last week’s performances of Confetti Sunrise and the Trisha Brown Dance Company.

Professor Amy Chavasse invites us into the world of Trisha Brown

We were joined on Monday evening by U-M Associate Professor of Dance Amy Chavasse, who guided us through some physicality unique to Trisha Brown. Trisha emphasized the idea of “pure movement” in her work: movement based on mechanical body actions such as bending, straightening, or rotating: stripped of any metaphor or connotation. Trisha built on this essential, pure movement to create the much of the porous, fluid, and surprising choreography we saw this weekend. Amy helped us understand these sensations by inviting us to create and erase edges; set up expectations only to veer in a different direction; and produce gestures that hold specific meaning to us, but appear abstract to the outside eye.

Exploring Trisha Brown’s notion of “pure movement”

I think it is safe to say that after this movement workshop, we are all ready to fly to New York and dance for Trisha Brown. Alas, we had to save our debut as the Trisha Brownie Dance Company (thank you, Charles, for coining the name!) for another day, because there was too much to talk about here in Ann Arbor! We began a rich conversation about this weekend’s performance, acknowledging the elements we saw on the program (costumes, lights, set pieces) as entry points into the dances’ worlds. We also made a nice connection between Trisha Brown, Confetti Sunrise, and the workshop that Anna Martine Whitehead led for us during our last Night School session: thinking about gesture as a mechanism for developing movement and meaning. As we discussed the moments of delight, curiosity, and even discomfort we found in all of the works we watched over the week, we asked ourselves: What are we supposed to care about when watching dance? What do we bring to each performance that may influence our interpretations? How does time collapse and expand as we view performance that holds its own chronology in dance history, as well as in our own experiences?

Clare and Jim discuss Dancers as Diplomats: American Choreography in Cultural Exchange

Each week, I am excited by the ways our interpretations of specific performance works lead to larger discussions about what it means to view and discuss dance. Though we usually approach this broader conversation through performance analysis, this week we were lucky enough to explore ideas behind dance scholarship through Clare’s research on diplomacy in American dance. Her book, which you can buy from UMS for only $20 (excuse my shameless plug!), chronicles dancers’ perspectives of government-sponsored international tours by American dance companies during the early decades of the Cold War and twenty-first century. During the last half of Night School, Clare and Jim sat down to talk about Dancers as Diplomats, divulge some details behind the stories in the book, and answer our questions about the topic.

U-M Department of Dance faculty and students smile with Clare after a conversation about Dancers as Diplomats

Night School students Rebecca and Sam (photo on left) and Ed and Harvey posing with cupcakes and newly purchased copies of Clare’s book!

We have the perfect opportunity to crack this book open, as next week we are off for mid-winter (I just can’t bring myself to say spring) break. I’ll be in Las Vegas, and I have to say I’m more excited about my Cirque du Soleil tickets than I am about the casinos. I guess you can take the girl out of Night School but…

Whether you are travelling or staying in Michigan, I hope you find well-deserved downtime, and perhaps some opportunities to watch, discuss, or even practice dance! We return to the Alumni Center on Monday, March 9th and will be joined by the fantastic Kyle Abraham, whose company Abraham.In.Motion performs at the Power Center that weekend. As a hot, rising choreographer in today’s contemporary dance field, Kyle’s work will provide us with a new lens through which we view performance; it will be a real treat (unfortunately this time without the cupcakes) to have him with us for a session. See you all in two weeks!

Can’t wait to read my copy of Dancers as Diplomats!

Upcoming Events:

Hou Ying and Peng Zheng Dance Performance, Feb. 24, 7pm, U-M Keene Theater (FREE)

 Session 3 Resources and Readings:

Trisha Brown Dancing Watermotor [VIDEO]

Trisha Brown Pure Movement