Brian Brooks Moving Company

I attended the Visions and Voices event featuring the Brian Brooks Moving Company. Though this was fundamentally a dance event, it was also related strongly to design. I'm going to talk about the visual elements, not the performance elements, of this event in order to relate the event to our Design Fundamentals class. 

Looking at the dances in a detached way in order to focus on their visual elements, I saw the dancers as forms and lines in motion. The dance thus became to me about the relationship of the forms with each other and the relationship of the forms with the space. The dancers, along with the lighting and the abstract scenic visual elements of the dance, alternately created tension and balance in their relationships with each other and with the overall composition, the space of the stage.

Because of the scenic visual elements in the dance, there was also always a play between foreground and background in the dance. Sometimes the dancers seemed like the positive space of the composition, and sometimes they seemed like the negative space, as in Descent, a dance in which the spotlight is not on the dancers. (see 2nd Descent picture) 

Descent (2011)

The dances were all very unexpected and had a balance of disjointedness and fluidity, of variety and harmony, that was ultimately satisfying. An image that illustrates what I mean came up in the dance Descent. In a section of this dance, the dancers did not get the spotlight. They were in darkness while the light was shone on pieces of cloth that the dancers were keeping in the air by using a board as a fan. The cloth in this dance floating in the air had a freedom and randomness to it, yet there was a pattern to its movements as the dancers kept it in the air and directed it across the stage. I feel like this image is a good metaphor for the entire dance, because there was always a feeling of randomness and freedom to the dances, yet they were obviously choreographed and had a pattern to them.

Descent (2011)

The dances were all avant-garde, expanding what dance is. For example, the focus was not purely dance, for there were always scenic visual elements that accompanied the dance. 

The visual design accompanying the dance were about making the invisible visible, according to Brian Brooks. Brooks used the visual design elements to emphasize the invisible forces that are always at work. For example, the lines in Run Don't Run emphasized the distance and energy between the dancers. The lines also amplified the choices of the choreography and the actions and reactions, the trajectory, of the movements of the dancers. 

Run Don't Run (2013) 

To me, the Brian Brooks Moving Company dances were about an aesthetic visual experience, not about narrative or representation  The dances therefore seemed like abstract visual art. However, unlike most famous visual art, which seems to be immortal, the dances are completely ephemeral and the memories of the experience are all that remain of them after they are over. 

Run Don't Run (2013)