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Kat Válastur: In memory of Trisha Brown

Fresh and lost in NYC I remember myself walking through a heavy snowfall to reach the Trisha Brown Studios – when I arrived, taking off all the heavy layers of winter clothes felt already as part of my initiation, peeling off had started! Trisha Brown was not often there, she would come only if she had to rehearse with the company, filling up the space with a distinctive sense of lightness.

I spent hours and hours on the floor in order to understand the “geography” of the bones and joints, to isolate, to move with no effort, to release, to become freedom. “Use less”, Keith Thompson said to me once during a class and that was the beginning of my confrontation to the “more” I was carrying as a dancer then. Getting to know Trisha Brown’s technique, the repertoire with her dancers, the spirit of her work: a purifying experience on unlearning and re-starting to dance…