Yvonne Rainer performing Trio A in Portland, OR in 1973. Photographer unknown.
Trio A
Since 2003, I have served as one of a handful of international dance artists designated by Yvonne Rainer as a custodian/transmitter of her post-modern work - Trio A. It is my job to teach and perform this work in perpetuity in order that its specific physical ideas can continue to be seen and studied by the next generation of dancers, audiences, and scholars.
Over the last decade, I have had the opportunity to perform this work at Judson Church (2002), Reed College (2003), Getty Museum (2004), the Berkeley Art Museum (2012), School of Art Institute of Chicago (2016), among many others. I have had invitations to set/transmit the work on many dance companies and individual artists including: the AXIS Dance Company (2014), the Mills College Repertory Ensemble (2010), Linda Austin/PWNW (2009), Sarah Ebert (2004), and Lu Yim (2014).
For more history about my experience with the dance click here and here.
About Trio A
Initially performed in 1966 by Rainer, David Gordon and Steve Paxton at Judson Church in NYC, Trio A is a 5-minute sequence of movement that has been considered radical since its very first moment of performance because it proposed an entirely new way to compose, think about, and perform dance. Seminal in its argument that engaging the human body in the straightforward task of simply moving is indeed 'dancing', Trio A invites the dancer and the viewer to re-consider the expectations that each bring to the moment of dance. With its evenness of phrasing, specificity of gaze, and use of a seemingly untrained and non-virtuosic movement vocabulary, Trio A celebrates the factual elegance of the moving body. Dance historians regard it as a major turning point in the field of dance.
Learning Trio A
Trio A takes approximately 15-25 hours to learn and then clean to the exacting physical and performative expectations of Ms. Rainer. The fee for learning the work varies with each project, depending on the number of dancers involved. Full completion of the process and final approval by the custodian grants the dancer the rights to perform but not teach the work. If you are interested in learning Trio A, please contact me.
Past Transmissions
Axis Dance Company
Oakland, 2014
Dancers: Marc Brew, Juliana Monin, Sonscherre Giles, Joel Brown
More Information:
KALW 91.7FM Local Radio interview about the show
SF Gate's show review
Heather Desaulnier's show review
A Program for Plants
School of Art Institute of Chicago, 2016
Artists: Joshi Radin, Linda Tegg, Brian M. John