Trisha Brown Dance Company, “Roof Piece,” 1971 (photo by Babette Mangolte)
The High Line
Enter at 13th St. & Gansevoort
June 9-10, 7:00 pm
June 11, 5:00 & 7:00 pm
Admission: free
www.thehighline.org
www.trishabrowncompany.org
twi-ny slideshow
The Trisha Brown Dance Company has had quite a fortieth anniversary year, performing old and new works all over the world, including special shows at the Whitney and MoMA. They are concluding the celebration with a re-creation of their seminal 1971 dance “Roof Piece,” which will take place June 9-11 on rooftops surrounding the south end of the High Line. Unseen on outdoor rooftops since 1973, the piece, which is part of the High Line Art program, will feature the dancers — Neal Beasley, Elena Demyanenko, Dai Jian, Leah Morrison, Tamara Riewe, Nicholas Strafaccia, Laurel Tentindo, Samuel von Wentz, and Lee Serle — reacting to one another’s movement with improvisation. Admission is free and no RSVP is required, but be prepared for long lines to witness this wholly unique and exciting experience. The High Line is also likely to be crowded now that section two just opened, extending the former abandoned railway, which has been turned into a beautiful park, all the way to Thirtieth St. And keep a look-out for the various art projects along the High Line, including Kim Beck’s “Space Available,” which can also be found on surrounding rooftops; Julianne Swartz’s “Digital Empathy” sound pieces; Sarah Sze’s “Still Life with Landscape (Model for a Habitat)”; Stephen Vitiello’s “A Bell for Every Minute” installation; Spencer Finch’s “The River That Flows Both Ways,” about the Hudson; and official High Line photographer Joel Sternfeld’s “A Railroad Artifact, 30th St., May 2000.”
Trisha Brown Dance Company triumphantly re-creates seminal “Roof Piece” along the High Line to conclude fortieth anniversary (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Update: On a beautiful early Friday evening on the High Line, Trisha Brown re-created her thrilling “Roof Piece” as hundreds of visitors lined the southern end of the High Line. Nine dancers wearing bold red outfits were spaced around the elevated park, two on the High Line itself, seven others scattered on surrounding rooftops, one dancer nearly within arm’s reach, another far off in the distance, barely visible. Improvised within a set dance vocabulary, the work begins as one dancer improvises the first move, which is then repeated as it travels from dancer to dancer in a specific order that recalls a visual game of telephone (and is then reversed), only without any mangling of the words. Although they’re all performing the same slow movements, they each come off in different manners, one dancer seen against the blue sky, another against a white brick wall, a third against the Jersey skyline, a fourth in a rectangular doorway that resembles a framed work of art. In an odd way, they recall Antony Gormley’s life-size, rooftop statues (“Event Horizon”) that filled Madison Square Park and the Flatiron District last year. There is no single place to be able to see all the dancers at once, so make your way around the area to catch each one. The thirty-minute performance, which concludes TBDC’s fortieth anniversary year, will be repeated Saturday at 5:00 and 7:00, with Sunday as a rain date in case one of the shows is canceled because of bad weather.