thINKingDANCE  aspires to write about dance in an open and fair way, especially dance that’s edging into new territory or otherwise not well represented. It’s a hard thing to do, and we haven’t had a perfect record. But it’s something all dance writers should be accountable for, including those at the august New York Times. 

To the Editor:

As a dance artist who has followed the work of Trisha Brown since 1975, I was gratified to see coverage of her career in Sunday’s feature (Pure Dance, Pure Finale) but was dismayed by Alistair Macaulay’s pronouncement that her style lacked rigor and that the greatness of her work is in question.

Both readers and the historical record are done a disservice when the lead dance writer at the Times fails to see that the rigor in Brown’s work is no longer about the pointed foot but about the precisely timed collision, the exact harnessing of weight falling through space, the down-to-the centimeter exactness of spatial relationships and also about a continuing investigation over the course of over fifty years that opened out new ground in multiple, distinct phases of dance making.

At the death of Pina Bausch, this writer also dismissed the value/quality of that artist’s work. Is there a thrill in the power of the writer to belittle the truly great? Dance is such a struggle as an art and a life. When someone has transformed the field, let’s recognize that and not, through ignorance or prejudice, minimize her value.

Sincerely yours,

Lisa Kraus
Former dancer, Trisha Brown Dance Company
Editor, thINKingDANCE.net