Twelve Ton Rose

Twelve Ton Rose

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Thu. 28 November 2024 — 20h

Maubeuge - La Luna

Tue. 28 January 2025 — 20h30

Alès - Le Cratère Scène nationale

Wed. 29 January 2025 — 20h30

Alès - Le Cratère Scène nationale

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Premiered on November 26, 1996 at Arsenal (Metz, France)
Repertory entry on March 2nd, 2022 at the Opéra national de Lorraine (Nancy)

9 DANCERS
25 MINUTES

Photo © Julietta Cervantes

Choreography
Trisha Brown
Restaging 2022
Kathleen Fisher, Abigail Yager Ming-Lung Yang, Katrina Warren
Visual Design
Trisha Brown
Costumes
Burt Barr
Light
Spencer Brown
Sound
Anton Webern, Five Movements for String Quartet, Op. 5; Three Pieces, Op. 7; String Quartet, Op. 28
Live music
Musicians of the Opéra national de Lorraine
Choreography
Trisha Brown
Restaging 2022
Kathleen Fisher, Abigail Yager Ming-Lung Yang, Katrina Warren
Visual Design
Trisha Brown
Costumes
Burt Barr
Light
Spencer Brown
Sound
Anton Webern, Five Movements for String Quartet, Op. 5; Three Pieces, Op. 7; String Quartet, Op. 28
Live music
Musicians of the Opéra national de Lorraine

Thu. 28 November 2024 — 20h

Tue. 28 January 2025 — 20h30

Wed. 29 January 2025 — 20h30

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"Twelve Ton Rose (1996) is the second work in Brown’s music cycle, set to Anton Webern’s Opus 5, Opus 7, and Opus 28. The title is a whimsical play on twelve tone rows, a compositional device developed by Arnold Schoenberg and used extensively by Webern. A series of lush ensemble pieces, duets, and solos, the choreography has a deliberate yet poetic relation to the musical structures. Brown and her company, like Webern, exhibited a profound interest in redefining contrapuntal expressions.

Brown noted how the music dissolved in and out and used that as inspiration in her choreography, at times filling the silences and enlivening stillnesses. In most prior works for the proscenium, the company would generate a large body of phrase work “belonging” to each piece to be used as fodder throughout the entirety of the work. 

In Twelve Ton Rose, the center sections alone feature movement lines singular to the work.  Other materials are drawn from throughout Browns vast repertory and re-framed, multiplied, layered, collided, stretched and condensed; the resulting choreography reflecting Webern’s tendency away from strong tonal centrism and towards abstraction and lyricism. "

Kathleen Fisher

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Trisha Brown

Trisha Brown (Founding Artistic Director and Choreographer) was born and raised in Aberdeen, Washington . After graduating from Mills College in Oakland, California, studying with Anna Halprin and teaching at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, Trisha Brown moved to New York City in 1961. Instantly immersed in what was to become the post-modern phenomena of Judson Dance Theater, her movement investigations found the extraordinary in the everyday and challenged existing perceptions of what constitutes performance. In this “hotbed of dance revolution”, Brown, along with like-minded artists, pushed the limits of choreography thereby changing modern dance forever.

In 1970, Brown formed her company and explored the terrain of her adoptive SoHo making Man Walking Down the Side of a Building (1970), and Roof Piece (1971). Her first work for the proscenium stage, Glacial Decoy (1979), was also the first of many collaborations with Robert Rauschenberg. Opal Loop/Cloud Installation #72503 (1980), created with the fog designer Fujiko Nakaya, was followed by Son of Gone Fishin’ (1981), which featured sets by Donald Judd. The now iconic Set and Reset (1983), with original music by Laurie Anderson and visual design by Robert Rauschenberg, completed Brown’s first fully developed cycle of work, Unstable Molecular Structure. This cycle epitomized the fluid yet unpredictably geometric style that remains a hallmark of her work. Brown then began her relentlessly athletic Valiant Series, best exemplified by the powerful Newark (1987) and Astral Convertible (1989) – pushing her dancers to their physical limits and exploring gender-specific movement. Next came the elegant and mysterious Back to Zero cycle in which Brown pulled back from external virtuosity to investigate unconscious movement. This cycle includes Foray Forêt (1990), and For M.G.: The Movie (1991). Brown collaborated for the final time with Rauschenberg to create If you couldn’t see me (1994), in which she danced entirely with her back to the audience.

Brown turned her attention to classical music and opera production, initiating what is known as her Music cycle. Choreographed to J.S. Bach’s monumental Musical Offering, M.O. (1995) was hailed as a “masterpiece” by Anna Kisselgoff of the New York Times. Brown continued to work with new collaborators, including visual artist Terry Winters and composer Dave Douglas, with whom she created El Trilogy (2000). She then worked with long-time friend and artist, Elizabeth Murray to create PRESENT TENSE (2003), to music by John Cage.

Brown stepped into the world of opera to choreograph Carmen (1986) and again to direct Claudio Monteverdi's L’Orfeo (1998). Since then, Brown has gone on to direct four more operas, including, Luci Mie Traditrici (2001), Winterreise (2002), Da Gelo a Gelo (2006) and most recently, Pygmalion (2010).

Continuing to venture into new terrain, Brown created O zlożony/O composite (2004) for three étoiles of the Paris Opera Ballet, working with long-time collaborators Laurie Anderson and Jennifer Tipton. Forays into new technology created the witty and sophisticated I love my robots (2007), with Japanese artist and robotics designer Kenjiro Okazaki. Her work with Pygmalion produced two dance pieces L’Amour au théâtre (2009) and Les Yeux et l'âme (2011). Brown’s last work, I’m going to toss my arms- if you catch them they’re yours (2011), is a collaboration with visual artist Burt Barr, whose striking set is dominated by industrial fans. The original music is by Alvin Curran.

As well as being a prolific choreographer, Brown is an accomplished visual artist, as experienced in It’s a Draw (2002). Her drawings have been seen in exhibitions, galleries and museums throughout the world including the Venice Biennale, The Drawing Center in Philadelphia, The New Museum, White Cube, Documenta XII, Walker Art Center, Centre Georges Pompidou, Mills College, Musée d'art Contemporain de Lyon, and Museum of Modern Art. Brown is represented by Sikkema Jenkins & Co. in NYC.

Trisha Brown has created over 100 dance works since 1961, and was the first woman choreographer to receive the coveted MacArthur Foundation Fellowship “Genius Award.” She has been awarded many other honors including five fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, two John Simon Guggenheim Fellowships, Brandeis University’s Creative Arts Medal in Dance, and she has been named a Veuve Clicquot Grande Dame. In 1988, Brown was named Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the government of France. In January 2000, she was promoted to Officier and in 2004, she was again elevated, this time to the level of Commandeur. She was a 1994 recipient of the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award and, at the invitation of President Bill Clinton, served on the National Council on the Arts from 1994 to 1997. In 1999, Brown received the New York State Governor’s Arts Award and, in 2003, was honored with the National Medal of Arts. She had the prestigious honor to serve as a Rolex Arts Initiative Mentor for 2010-11 as well as receiving the S.L.A.M. Action Maverick Award presented by Elizabeth Streb, and the Capezio Ballet Makers Dance Foundation Award in 2010. She has received numerous honorary doctorates, is an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and was awarded the 2011 New York Dance and Performance ‘Bessie’ Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2011, Brown was honored with the prestigious Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize for making an “outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind’s enjoyment and understanding of life.” In 2012, Brown became a United States Artists Simon Fellow and received the first Robert Rauschenberg Award from the Foundation of Contemporary Arts. She was recently honored with the BOMB Magazine Award.