[US] Susan Rosenberg/WU Jun-yi

The message author of the International Dance Day 2017 is the great dancer, artist, and educator Trisha Brown. However, it is with great sadness that she passed away on March 18th, 2017, after a lengthy illness. On April 28th, the reporter WU Jun-yi (hereafter referred to as W)interviewed the Consulting Historical Scholar of the Trisha Brown Dance Company Susan Rosenberg(hereafter referred to as S), who was also invited as a speaker of the keynote speech for the International Dance Day, on the artistic career, artistic spirit, and artistic charms of this message author.

W: We know that Trisha Brown is the message author of the International Dance Day 2017. Can you tell us what amessage author is?

S: The message author speaks to the theme of the conference, which this year is “We Dance, Together,”and the message author’s goal is to communicate internationally about the importance of dance as an art form and to promote their particular vision of dance,which in Trisha’s case comes from her background of a fifty year career in the field.

W: Indeed, in terms of the contribution that she has made to the dance field and the artistic significance of her works, it is undisputed that she shall be this year’s massage author. Can you please give us a briefintro of Trisha Brown?

S: Well, Trisha started as part of an experimental group working in both California and New York. She got her beginnings in the 1960s—she was one of the first people to settle in SOHO, Low Manhattan, New York,in the “l(fā)of t district” there. She started her company in 1970 and had a very unconventional beginning, working outside of theatres, making dances where people walked down the sides of buildings, or did performances on streets or on roof tops. She began a very conceptual investigation into what dance movement could be, basically stripping down dance from all technical virtuosity and to say that just walking is dance, or everyday movement can be dance. Then she invented her own abstract movement forms, of ten working with very conceptual scores and notations. In 1978, she began to invent her own new movement language, based on her extraordinary abilities as a dancer. And then she began working on the stage for the first time collaborating with America’s greatest visual artists and teaching other dancers the movement language that she discovered in her own body.

W: Apparently, Trisha’s dance comes from outside the box. Now, I know that she was good at math as a youngster. Do you think she applied some of her math learning to her dance?

S: Um...I didn’t know that she had a talent for mathematics in her youth. Actually, that is new information to me! There was only a very briefperiod in her career when she used mathematics as a structural principle in her dances, and it came at a time when other artists, sculptors in particular, were using mathematics as a structural principle in their work. So it was really only between 1971 and 1975 that she used mathematics. She never created dance tomusic, so her dancers do not count,which is very unusual in dance. Usually, dancers count to the timing of the music, but for the first two decades of her career, she largely performed in silence. So there was no musical counting whatsoever, although it could be said mathematics played a part in how she structured her compositions.

W: Let’s talk about Trisha Brown’s dance life.When did Trisha start to dance? Did she have any academic dance training before she started to do modern dance?

S: Well, Trisha never really studied ballet. She studied all of the major modern techniques of the time. As a young girl, she studied tap and jazz, because she grew up in a very small town in the Pacific North West of the United States. I don’t think that Trisha’s dance reflects any formal training, because she invented her own way of moving completely. She had a very, very special body in terms of its flexibility and its spontaneity. The connection between her mind and her body was so deep that she invented something completely original. So, it is very difficult to make connections with anything that came before her—she was so unique.

W: Did she ever try gymnastics since we can see a lot of related elements in her dance?

S: No, not at all. She grew up in the Pacific North West near the rainforest on the Olympic Peninsula, and she was very much an outdoors person as a child—she climbed trees; she ran in the water; she went fishing and hunting with her father. She loved nature, and she said,“The rainforest was my art school.” So she learned from nature, playing outdoors about her body and athleticism.Also, her brother was a star athlete in ［American］Football and in basketball. And they played together—even though she was a girl, he would play ［American］Football together, and he even tried to train her on how to do the Pole-Vault! So she was extremely athletic, but she never did gymnastics. The closest she came was that she traveled to India in 1970. She did witness Indian circus performers doing very high-climbing balancing acts. And she was very interested in this, but she never took any formal training in gymnastics or the circus arts.

W: It seems that the nature has a big influence on her. In the 1970s, Trisha incorporated a lot of movements from people’s daily and normal lives into her dances, and even the dance venues she selected were natural environments and open spaces. Do you think this is influenced by the popularity of oriental Zen at that time among artists and intellectuals?

S: That’s an interesting question. I don’t know about any Asian influence on her dance, but what comes to mind most of all was that the composer John Cage was a very, very strong influence on Trisha Brown. John Cage was one of the most important people in the United States to bring Asian philosophies to music and dance.I also know that it is probable that Trisha’s dancers did exercises such asTai Chi, and that they would looked for techniques of non-western movement in their investigations of the body and improvisation.

W: Some scholar divided Trisha’s dance life into four stages: structure improvisation, installation,accumulation, and release. In the first stage of structure improvisation, Trisha took part in the Judson Dance Theater. Can you tell us something about this Judson Dance Theater?

S: The Judson Dance Theater is actually the result of a class on choreographic composition, which was taught by a man named Robert Dunne who was a student of John Cage, the composer. The class was supposed to teach choreographers and dancers John Cage’s ideas on musical composition. Out of that class came a series of recitals which took place at Judson Church, which is downtown ［New York］ on the south side of a park called Washington Square Park. Trisha participated in Judson Dance Theater—it was a collective of people that were sharing new ideas for how to “make up a way of how to make up a dance,” which was a quote from Trisha. How do you “make up a way to make up a dance” when you have gotten rid of all the existing ways of composing?So it was a place where all these new dances were shown. Trisha took part as a performer in many of her colleagues works—they all performed in each other’s works. She was very young in her career then. She made several works that were performed at Judson Church as well, as that was the place where the question “What is dance?” was asked— “what can be dance? what does dance encompass?” , and also the act of getting rid of the conventional notions of what dance was; that is what the Judson Dance Centre did essentially.

W: We may consider Judson Dance Theater as the HQ for the American experimental dance.Did Trisha’s more experimental dances receive any negative reviews or even boycotts when she was at the Judson Dance Theater?

S: Yes, actually, there is a famous story that while I was writing my book I discovered, no-one knew about until now, which is that most of the people in Judson just performed at the church in front of their family and friends. So the New York press would write a review and ask, “what’s going on here?” or whatever. Since most of the audiences were friends, so it was very well received.Trisha, very differently from everyone else in Judson,wanted to show her dance at the Modern Dance Festival,which at that time took place in New London, Connecticut.So she took a dance, her first one, made in New York,in this very experimental context, to New London and auditioned it for performance in this place where everyone was dancing—Martha Graham, Eric Hawkins,and Merce Cunningham, and Doris Humphrey—and all the great modern dance techniques were taught there. I discovered in my research that it created this huge conflict. They rejected the dance, and then the students rose up and said, “no, no you have to include it!” —they thought it was brilliant. It caused a big fight at the center of modern dance in America at that time. So Trisha fought and fought and they said “Okay, you can do the dance but have to lose the soundtrack,” because the soundtrack was a vacuum cleaner and a woman’s voice. Trisha said,“no, I refuse to do it unless it has the sound.” And then she did it. Then, she wrote about it—I discovered in the letters she wrote and that other people wrote who were there at the time. It was the first time ever that there was a conflict at the American Dance Festival. I am sure she did it deliberately to find out how her new work would be perceived by people in the modern dance field, because she didn’t know. Everyone in New York was clapping and excited, but she took it to a new context and everyone found it surprising and shocking.

W: Trisha’s experiments even made the simple“walking” more meaningful. “Walking on the Wall”is a work which was so different at its time in term of performing, props, venue, and even the way for audiences to watch. Can you tell us something about this work?

S: Well, the first version was called “Man Walking Down the Side of a Building,” and that was done in 1970 on a seven-story building where Trisha lived in Soho. A man was positioned at the top and held by rope. He had to put his body perpendicular to the ground and then walk done the side of a building. This was an experiment using gravity, and it was an experiment of walking against the natural course of gravity—for ifhe had followed gravity,his body would of collapsed. So he had to pantomime and tried to look like he was walking naturally. This didn’t really just show dance to be walking—or walking to be dance—it showed the idea that we are filled with physical memories that we don’t think about. Ifyou are put in a position where you are asked to walk vertically, you have to ask yourself“what does my body do when I walk?what is walking made of ?”

That was the first experiment. Then she was invited to the Whitney Museum, and she did the walking on the walls, horizontally walking on the walls, instead of vertically walking down the walls. And that was a group piece for 7 dancers. It was a very important event—it occurred in one of America’s most famous museums, a rare time where dance was shown in a museum, which is very important to today, as now dance is shown all over in museums everywhere. That was an experiment which did not have a beginning, a middle, and an end,as when you walked vertically as this told you when to stop, and thus allowed her to reorient the perception of walking. The audience said it felt as though they were looking down on the performers, because their heads were sticking out the wall as they walked around the wall. These are some of her earliest, radical, and most dangerous—very dangerous—experiments, with testing the limits of the body and the body’s memory of what its most everyday behavior is.

W: After this, Trisha entered a period in her career,which we may call as accumulation stage, when she created most of her widely known modern dance techniques...

S: Yes, it was very much a signature dance of hers, as the dances just mentioned—the “equipment dances” like “Walking on the Wall” —saw Trisha using architectural equipment as the score for her dance. She didn’t have to make too many decisions; she just had to set it up, and then it would happen, you know, setup the harnesses and the ropes and walk. She was not that interested in the fact that in making up a dance a choreographer has to make up so many complex decisions, decisions which come subjectively—out of the self. Trisha wanted to find a more objective system for working. Mathematics gave her a system, and that system is accumulation, which is 1, 1+2, 1+2+3, 1+2+3+4, ...It goes back to the beginning and restarts the dance. She made about 17 different dances that used accumulating,or de-accumulating, in a variety of patterns. Because the first one was a solo, it became what I call a signature,in that the fact that she repurposed the system but used different movement forms. In some cases, the performers were lying on the floor accumulating. The movement principle, that is the choreographic composition, was mathematical. But the movement principle was based on the fact the body has three anatomical principles according to Trisha Brown: bend, stretch, and rotate. All of the accumulation dances use this similar anatomical structure, which explores the different ways in which the body can bend, stretch, and rotate, and the different movement forms that come out of exploring those possibilities. of course, the secret, mystery, and beauty of the dance is that we really don’t know what Trisha decided on which forms, except that they are very, very beautiful and very, very unusual. Even though she said she was not making subjective decisions, because the body just bends, stretches, and rotates, and she used numbers to compose, of course she made many subjective decisions about the forms she used, and the forms were of most interest to her, were the most mysterious thing, and are what I think make the dances so beautiful.

W: Trisha even made the traditional dance different. What about her work “Spanish Dance,”which was different from the Flamenco we expect?

S: As you know, the dance involves 5 dancers placed in a row, and they have to be placed between two walls,which is the most important part of the dance. As in “Man Walking Down the Side of a Building,” Trisha is dividing up time and space between two walls. The dance is set to a song of the great American folksinger Bob Dylan,but sung by a different artist Gordon Lightfoot, calledEarly Morning Rain. The dancers just shuffle up, rotating their hips slightly, until one dancer picks up another, and another, and then while they are doing this—I cannot show you as I am not a dancer—they raise their arms above their heads with great flourish, as ifthey were doing a Spanish type of dance on the upper part of the body, while the lower part of the body is just wiggling. The Spanish part［of the dance］ is very proud, very dramatic, but when they come to the wall ［Susan makes clapping sound］, they pile up and hit the wall—it is very funny! It ismeantto be a very funny dance, and it is supposed to respect the drama which certain dances, like Flamenco or Spanish dance, have and say “wow, look at this extravagant form”whilst at the same time doing it in a minimalist way and making a joke about the fact that she is using architecture to structure the time and space of the dance. So I think it is Trisha being funny. It is one of her most popular dances, one of her most performed dances, for a number of reasons. One is that it requires a certain musicality, as obviously keeping rhythm with bodies is very difficult.But it does not require jumping and twirling, and so people of all ages can do it and learn that dance.

W: Trisha once suggested she saw herselfas a “humorous” dancer. Where do you think this came from?

S: Yes, Trisha was a person of great humor, wit, and playfulness. Inevitably, who an artist is becomes a part of their work. Trisha loved puns, and a lot of her dances are very funny. Ifyou look at the details, in that dance for example ［the above mentioned “Spanish Dance”］,the dancers are doing these movements and then ［claps］boom!—they crash into a wall and it is all over. In some of her other dances, she would play games, like she would tell her dancers “go invisible” —that was one of her instructions—how do you go invisible when you are on the stage? So what they would all do was to lie down on the ground as ifyou couldn’t see them and cover their eyes. Or sometimes, Trisha would make a movement that would involve two people. For example, in “Set and Reset,” she made a movement where someone puts their arms like this ［demonstrates the movement］ and the other person dives through their arms. And then later on the dance, the performer repeats the hand gesture, but no one dives through. Ifyou’ve seen it before, you know she is making a joke about a previous movement. I am trying to think of other examples—she would just give her dancers instructions which werevery funny. She would say “go here, do this, do this, do this, do this, act like a sexy woman, walk and then be Charlie Chaplin, and then...” She did it to inspire ideas for movement. It was part of her experimental process. In the end, these funny movements would end up in the dance with nicknames which the dancers gave the work. But Trisha could also be extremely serious. Like when she was composing to the work of Johannes Sebastian Bach, she was very serious. But when she composed her first operaL’Orfeo,she told me that sometimes in her mind, in order to get away from normal way of how opera in America or Europe would be produced, she would imagine her characters as cartoon characters, and she would have them doing very exaggerated things—things that we would not necessarily know she was doing, but that in her mind she was always coming up with funny ways to get her dancers to do what she wanted.

W: I heard that she would give some “missions impossible” to her dancers during training. Was that true?

S: That is a great line. I don’t know where you got “Mission Impossible” ! But yes, from the very beginning in the 1960s, when they were doing structured improvisation, there was always the idea that you would give yourselfan impossible instruction and then see what happened. This all part of the idea—how do you give yourselfor make something new? How can you possibly make something new ifyou start with a preconceived idea? Ifyou start by telling yourselfto do something that is completely impossible, like to line up all the parts of your body on top of one another in five minutes or five seconds, then your body has to come up with an answer to the question. This was something Trisha loved to do:think about what would be an impossible instruction that she could think about and tell her dancers. And then whatever comes out of it is completely new. Also sometimes she would have ideas that were impossible,or seemingly impossible. Her dancers would actually do them because she could trick them into situations ［where it became possible］. One of the things she would like to do is to say have one dancer here and one here, have them run directly at each other, and see what happens. And so,the body solves problems before the mind even knows they exist. I think of that for when she was making her dance called “Water Motor” in 1978. I can’t remember the exact instructions she gave herself, but she would verbally give herselfan impossible instruction in order to achieve eccentric results; for ifthere is no real answer,then you come up with an imaginary answer. So, yeah,she used that a lot. Also because she made a lot of the movement on her own body and taught it to her dancers,she was of ten using the idea of “Mission Impossible” and making it possible.

W: Trisha’s choreography is well connected with visual arts, for example, dancing on paper while painting the paper with her feet. Is this still dance,or rather, is there a clearly defined barrier between dance and other visual art forms?

S: Is it still dance? That is a very interesting question.In relation to the drawings ［dancing on paper whilst painting it with her feet］ was a project I worked on with Trisha. That was how I met Trisha—through working on that project with her. She called it “It’s a Draw.” That is another example of her humor, because in English“it’s a draw” means “it’s a tie.” She was saying, “It’s a tie between dance and drawing,” as in neither one is the winner. They are equal in competition with one another. One cannot beat the other. I think that title captures of brilliantly funny and sophisticated her mind was because she was making these drawings by dancing with charcoal between her fingers and toes and an oil stick. The first time she did this she really performed and improvisational dance: she went down on the ground and she stood up. I saw her tap dance with charcoal between her toes, making marks on the ground, and it ended up making a beautiful composition, which because she was composing with her body in space. of course, when she put the marks on the paper on the ground, we see there is really no difference between a gesture made in space and a gesture made on the page, or a gesture in the air or a gesture on the stage. So I think she was playing with the idea that there is no division between these things. All are signs of gesture—or traces of gesture—whether that gesture is made in the air or that gesture is recorded.

W: We know that Trisha and the well-known visual artist Robert Rauschenberg were close friends. Tell us something about the relationship between Trisha and Rauschenberg.

S: Well, Trisha first met Robert Rauschenberg shortly after she arrived in New York. She told me, and she has told many people, that she was a Work-Study Student at the Merce Cunningham Dance Company,where her job was to answer the telephone. And this man named Robert Rauschenberg would call, because Robert Rauschenberg was at the time the Artistic Director of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and was himselfvery close to Merce Cunningham and John Cage. So Trisha would have these hilarious conversations with him on the phone. Yet she had no idea who he was. One day, she said, “Who is this Robert Rauschenberg?”,because they had already established this rapport. It turns out that she found out when she went to see a famous retrospective of his work in 1963, at the Jewish Museum. It was the first big showing of his work, and she realized, “oh my gosh!” This Robert Rauschenberg is really a major American artist, who was still establishing his career at that time, it should be said. They remained friends. Robert Rauschenberg became involved in dance in the mid-1960s. He would sometimes create dances,or perform in other people’s work. When Trisha began to perform on the theatrical stage in 1979, the first person she said she thought of to work with was Robert Rauschenberg. He had already had a long career working with Merce Cunningham, but was no longer working with the Cunningham Dance Company. They had developed this friendship—it is one of those things where I do not think I could possibly describe. They had a very, very special relationship with one another, partly based on humor and partly based on the fact, which she once told me, that she came from the Pacific North West and at Thanksgiving her family would send her frozen Salmon,and his family came from Texas and they would send him frozen Turkey—or something like that, I don’t know—so they had some American Connection. Then she went on to work with Rauschenberg on five different productions where he created the sets and costumes, beginning with her first work “Glacial Decoy” in 1979, and then,continuing with the work that is going to be performed tomorrow night here in Shanghai “IfYou Couldn’t See Me,” which was Rauschenberg’s idea for Trisha Brown.It is the simplest collaboration they worked on. Their earlier collaborations involved photography and film and lighting, and he made costumes that involved silk screens.He was really the stage designer for four different productions. For the dance being performed in Shanghai,their last collaboration, he gave Trisha Brown the idea to perform with her back to the audience, or should I sayrule—he gave her the rule that she had to make a dance with her back facing the audience, which she was taken aback by “won’t they think I am rude ifI turn my back to them?” He also created the music and the beautiful costume for her.

W: We know that this year’s International Dance Day Message by Trisha Brown was put together by you. As a close friend of Trisha Brown, in your opinion, who is Trisha Brownin conclusion?

S: What kind of person was Trisha? One of the most extraordinary, ifnotthemost extraordinary, persons I have ever met. Trisha was absolutely brilliant. In some people, there is a separation; they can have a brilliant mind or be a brilliant mover, but Trisha was brilliant in her mindandbrilliant in her body. And part of the thing about her humor that was so unusual was because it was her mind and body completely connected to one another.So she could speak with her body like no other. She was incredibly human, incredibly humble for someone of such incredible greatness and brilliance with a contribution to the history of the arts. Her art embodies this idea that“when I’m on the stage, I am a human being, and you can feel my humanity. You can see me breathing. You can see me looking at you. I’m a real person.” That is what she was on the stage and that is what she was in real life. She was extraordinarily caring about her dancers—their welfare and well being in the world. As her message says, which comes from many previous instances where Trisha made her comments about the arts, it shows the importance of the arts to humanity, which she believed in deeply. She understood that dance, as a non-verbal art form, had a special role to play in connecting people of different cultures and societies. And that is part of the message that will be delivered from previous messages that Trisha has delivered.

W: Thank you for this interview, which makes us closer to this dance master Trisha Brown and her works.

(Tom Johnson and CHEN Zhong-wen noted down the text based on the record. Editor: SUN Xiao-yi)

2017年被選為國際舞蹈日獻詞人的是杰出的舞蹈藝術(shù)家、教育家崔莎· 布朗。然而不幸的是，2017年3月18日，崔莎· 布朗因病去世。為了深入了解這位獻詞人的藝術(shù)生涯、藝術(shù)精神及其藝術(shù)魅力，記者鄔鈞宜（以下簡稱W）于4月28日專訪了應邀前來參加國際舞蹈日舞蹈論壇的主旨發(fā)言人、崔莎· 布朗舞團的資深顧問蘇珊 · 羅森伯格女士（以下簡稱S）。

W：今年國際舞蹈日，崔莎· 布朗是獻詞人。您能否先向我們介紹一下“獻詞人”是一個怎樣的角色？

S：獻詞人通過每年舞蹈日的主題，例如今年的主題是“我們，一起舞”，向國際社會闡明舞蹈作為一種藝術(shù)形式的重要性，并表達其個人對于舞蹈的愿景。對于今年的獻詞人崔莎· 布朗而言，她的愿景構(gòu)建于她50年的職業(yè)生涯之上。

W：的確，從獻詞人以自身在藝術(shù)領(lǐng)域的特殊貢獻詮釋舞蹈藝術(shù)的價值和含義的角度來說，崔莎· 布朗被選為今年的獻詞人是眾望所歸。您能否向我們介紹一下崔莎· 布朗？

崔莎 · 布朗和她的舞團舞者于長城（1985年11月）攝影：肯恩 · 特巴契尼克Trisha Brown and her ensemble at the Great WallPhoto ? Ken Tabachnick, November 1985

S：崔莎50年的舞蹈職業(yè)生涯是從一個在加利福尼亞和紐約兩地工作的實驗小組起步的。她在20世紀60年代開始了自己的事業(yè)，是最早定居在曼哈頓下城蘇豪區(qū)“復式區(qū)”居民中的一員。1970年，她創(chuàng)辦了自己的舞蹈團。創(chuàng)辦之初，她就“不走尋常路”。例如在劇院外編排和表演，創(chuàng)作舞者走在建筑物外面的墻壁上的舞蹈作品，或在街道上、屋頂上進行表演。她對舞蹈動作有自己的概念和理解，脫離了傳統(tǒng)意義上的“技藝精湛”，認為行走即舞蹈，或者說日常動態(tài)也可以成為舞蹈動作。然后她發(fā)明了自身獨特的抽象舞蹈形態(tài)，通常用非常抽象的樂譜和舞譜來編舞。1978年，基于其作為舞者的非凡能力，她開始創(chuàng)造自己的舞蹈動作語言。之后她開始與美國最偉大的視覺藝術(shù)家合作，并將自己獨創(chuàng)的舞蹈動作語言教授給其他舞者。

W：顯然，崔莎是不拘泥于傳統(tǒng)舞蹈的條條框框的。聽說，崔莎 · 布朗小時候的數(shù)學非常棒，你覺得她是否將這一天分帶入到舞蹈中？

S：我不知道她小時候有數(shù)學天賦，這是我頭一次聽說！的確，她在舞蹈中用過數(shù)學作為編舞結(jié)構(gòu)原理，但這只在她職業(yè)生涯中持續(xù)了很短的時間，而且那段時間，許多藝術(shù)家，尤其是雕塑家，都會在自己的創(chuàng)作中運用數(shù)學作為結(jié)構(gòu)原理。所以，其實只有1971 — 1975年間，她在編舞中運用了數(shù)學理念。崔莎從不基于音樂創(chuàng)作舞蹈，她的舞者也不數(shù)拍子，這一點在舞蹈作品中是十分少見的。因為舞者通常是根據(jù)音樂的節(jié)奏來舞動的，而她職業(yè)生涯前20年的大量作品是沒有音樂的，沒有任何音樂節(jié)拍。數(shù)學原理倒是在她編排的舞蹈結(jié)構(gòu)中占有一席之地。

W：讓我們聊聊她的舞蹈歷程。崔莎是何時開始跳舞的？她在學習現(xiàn)代舞之前有沒有經(jīng)過正規(guī)的傳統(tǒng)舞蹈訓練？

S：嗯，崔莎從未學過芭蕾，但她學過她所在時代的所有主要的現(xiàn)代舞技巧。當她還是個小姑娘的時候，曾學過踢踏舞、爵士舞。她在美國西北部的一個沿海小鎮(zhèn)長大，這些舞蹈當時在那兒比較流行。在我看來，從她的舞蹈中看不到任何經(jīng)過正規(guī)傳統(tǒng)訓練的痕跡，因為她創(chuàng)造了一套她自己的舞蹈動作體系。她的身體有著極佳的柔韌性和自發(fā)性。由于她的思想和身體深度配合，可以說她發(fā)明了一些非常原創(chuàng)性的動作。所以她的舞蹈很難在之前的舞蹈中找尋到任何影子，她的確獨一無二。

W：在她的舞蹈里，我們似乎看到很多與體操相關(guān)的元素，那么她是否曾經(jīng)接觸過體操或者類似的運動項目？

S：她沒有學過體操。她在美國西北部的奧林匹克半島長大，那里毗鄰太平洋，有一片雨林。她兒時非常喜歡戶外運動。她爬樹、淌水，跟父親去釣魚和打獵。她非常熱愛大自然。她常說雨林就是她的藝術(shù)學校。所以可以說她是從大自然中學習，在戶外活運動中增長身體能力和運動能力的。她的哥哥是橄欖球和籃球的明星運動員。盡管她是一個女孩，他們也經(jīng)常一起玩橄欖球。她的哥哥甚至嘗試教她撐竿跳。所以她是非常運動型的人，但從來沒有學過體操。1970年，她去了印度。她觀看了印度馬戲團的表演者做各種高空平衡動作，這對她而言很有吸引力，但她自己從未接受過正規(guī)的體操或者馬戲團訓練。

W：您前面提到了大自然對她的影響。在20世紀70年代后期，崔莎把日常生活的動作拿來當作舞蹈動作，場地也選擇自然、開闊的空地。這是否與當時在藝術(shù)家和知識分子間盛行的東方禪宗思想有某種呼應？

S：這個問題很有意思。我不太清楚亞洲對她的舞蹈的影響。但給我印象最深的是，作曲家約翰· 凱奇對她影響很深。約翰是美國現(xiàn)代音樂界的泰斗之一，他把亞洲的哲學融入音樂和舞蹈。我也知道崔莎的舞者可能做了像太極一類的訓練。他們試圖在身體和即興方面探索一些非西方的動作技巧。

W：崔莎的舞蹈經(jīng)歷，有學者將其分為四個階段：結(jié)構(gòu)即興時期、裝置時期、累積時期和放松技巧時期。在第一時期，即結(jié)構(gòu)即興時期，她加入了賈德遜舞蹈劇場。能否給我們介紹一下這個舞蹈劇場？

S：賈德遜舞蹈劇場實際上是由一個編舞班發(fā)展而來的。這個編舞班的老師是羅伯特· 鄧恩，他是著名作曲家約翰 · 凱奇的學生。課程是教授班里的舞者和編導們約翰的音樂作曲理念。那個班級在紐約市中心華盛頓廣場公園南面的賈德遜教堂舉辦了一系列匯報演出。崔莎參加了賈德遜舞蹈劇場。大家聚在一起，一起分享如何“為創(chuàng)作舞蹈創(chuàng)造新路子”（崔莎本人語），思考“當你擺脫了所有這些現(xiàn)有的創(chuàng)作方式時，你如何‘為創(chuàng)作舞蹈創(chuàng)造新路子’？”那個舞蹈劇場是一個展示新的舞蹈作品的地方，崔莎作為舞者參與了很多同事的作品—他們經(jīng)常在彼此的作品中出現(xiàn)。那時，她的事業(yè)剛起步，也創(chuàng)作了幾個作品在賈德遜教堂演出。在那里，他們經(jīng)常在思考：“舞蹈到底是什么？”“什么可以成為舞蹈？舞蹈包含哪些要素？”在那里，人們也摒棄了陳舊的舞蹈定義。這就是賈德遜舞蹈劇場的實質(zhì)所在。

W：賈德遜的舞蹈劇場被認為是美國現(xiàn)代舞試驗的大本營。在當時的大背景下，崔莎的試驗性舞蹈是否收到負面評價，甚至抵制？

S：是的。當我寫書時，發(fā)現(xiàn)了一個在賈德遜舞蹈劇場不為人知的故事：來此觀看演出的人大多是藝術(shù)家或者表演者的家人或朋友。所以偶爾紐約的報紙會寫一篇評論，問類似于“這里到底在演些什么”的問題。但由于大多數(shù)觀眾都是表演者的朋友們，所以這些表演好評如潮。崔莎與賈德遜劇場的其他舞蹈家都很不同，她想帶自己的作品參加在美國康涅狄格州新英格蘭地區(qū)舉辦的現(xiàn)代舞藝術(shù)節(jié)。在這個現(xiàn)代舞藝術(shù)節(jié)上，瑪莎· 格萊姆、艾瑞克· 霍金斯、默斯· 坎寧漢、多麗絲· 韓芙莉都會參加，各種大師派的技巧都會教授。崔莎把自己在紐約這種非常實驗的情境下編排的舞蹈，也是她的第一個作品，帶到藝術(shù)節(jié)去面試。我在我的研究過程中發(fā)現(xiàn)，這在當時引起了巨大的爭端。藝術(shù)節(jié)一開始拒絕了她的作品參加，但學生們站起來說：“不，不，你們必須讓它在舞蹈節(jié)上上演！”—學生們認為這個作品很精彩。這在當時的美國現(xiàn)代舞界掀起了一場巨大的爭論。崔莎極力為自己辯護和爭取，藝術(shù)節(jié)方面最終向崔莎做出妥協(xié)，“好吧，你可以參加這次舞蹈節(jié)，但你必須去掉你的配樂”—因為這配樂其實是吸塵器和一位女性的聲音。可崔莎并沒有讓步：“除非有這個聲音，否則我拒絕演出?！弊罱K，她成功演出。她還記錄下了這件事。我之后找到了她和當時在現(xiàn)場的一些人的信件記錄。那是美國舞蹈節(jié)上第一件極具爭議的事件。我相信崔莎當時是有意而為之的，她這么做就是想知道當時在現(xiàn)代舞領(lǐng)域的人們是如何看待她的作品的。此前她是無法知道的，因為當時紐約每個人都對她的作品表示贊賞并激動不已，但她把自己獨創(chuàng)的舞蹈帶到另一個地方，卻發(fā)現(xiàn)讓人們感到非常震驚。

W：崔莎對舞蹈的試驗使一個簡單的“走路”也變得不同尋常，其中《在墻上行走》是不得不提的作品。不論是舞者本身的表演、道具，所在的場館，還是觀眾觀看的角度和方式，都不同于傳統(tǒng)意義上的舞蹈。能否給我們談談這個作品？

S：嗯，最初的版本叫《沿著墻壁向下行走的人》，完成于1970年，在崔莎所住的蘇豪區(qū)的一座七層的大樓上。一位表演者從頂端開始，身上綁著繩索。他必須垂直于建筑物的外墻并向下走。這是一個利用重力卻又對抗自然重力作用行走的實驗作品—如果那位表演者順循著重力，整個身體就會失控傾倒。所以他需要像在表演啞劇一樣盡力使自己看起來走得很自然。這一舞蹈并不僅僅為了向世人展示“舞蹈作品中的步行”或“步行動作組成的舞蹈”，它凸顯了這樣一種理念：我們的身體實際上有很多肌肉記憶是我們不會琢磨的。但是如果讓你的軀體垂直墻面行走，你必須問自己：“當我行走時，我的身體到底在做什么？步行是由什么組成的？”

這是崔莎的第一次試驗。在此之后，她受邀在惠特尼博物館演出。那次演出中，她修改了墻上行走，不再是向地面行走而是橫向行走，由七位舞者完成。這一事件的重要性在于舞蹈在美國著名博物館上演在當時是一種創(chuàng)舉，也為如今博物館舞蹈演出的普及化奠定了基礎。與垂直于墻壁、地面即終點的行走不同，由于行走的方向是平行于地面，這就意味著舞者可以繞墻無休無止地行走，沒有起點、中間點和終點。這讓崔莎對行走又有了新的認知。觀眾也表示他們仿佛是從高處從上往下觀看演員，因為身在地面的觀眾的確看到的是伸出墻外的舞者的頭頂。這些便是崔莎早期最激進和危險的舞蹈動作嘗試，挑戰(zhàn)了身體的極限和日常行為的身體記憶。

崔莎 · 布朗和她的舞團舞者攝于長城（1985年11月）攝影：肯恩· 特巴契尼克Trisha Brown and her ensemble dancers at the Great Wall Photo ? Ken Tabachnick, November 1985

W：之后，崔莎布朗進入了我們可以稱之為“累積”的階段。在這一時期，她創(chuàng)造了她最著名的那些編舞技法……

S：是的，從某種意義上說，我們之前談論的舞蹈都是利用設備編排的舞蹈，比如《在墻上行走》，這一類是崔莎的代表性舞蹈作品。崔莎利用建筑原理進行編舞，這意味著她不需要做很多決定，她只是把這些設備安置好，就可以進行表演—綁上一些繩索，然后開始行走。她不認為在進行舞蹈編排時必須要作出很多復雜的、通常是主觀的決定。她想找到一個更加客觀的系統(tǒng)。她從數(shù)學中找到了“累積”系統(tǒng)：1， 1+2， 1+2+3， 1+2+3+4，……每次回到起點，從開始的動作做起。她編排了大約17支不同的舞蹈，使用各式累積編排不同舞蹈動作。我認為她的第一支累積作品，一支獨舞，是她代表性的作品，因為她對編舞的體系進行了改造，使用不同的動作形式。有時表演者們會躺在地板上進行動作累積。這種舞蹈動作原理基于數(shù)學原理，就是她進行編舞的根據(jù)。崔莎認為這種動作原理是基于人體有三種解剖的可能性，即彎曲、拉伸和旋轉(zhuǎn)，所有這些“累積”的舞蹈作品都使用了類似的解剖結(jié)構(gòu)來探索這三種可能性不同形式的組合，以及由此編排出的舞蹈動作形式。我們覺得她的作品有著迷人的神秘感，我認為是在于它們匠心獨具，而我們想象不出崔莎是如何決定出使用這些形式的。即使她說她沒有做任何主觀的決定，任由身體彎曲、伸展和旋轉(zhuǎn)，并用數(shù)字進行編舞，其實對于使用何種形式的舞蹈動作，她做了很多主觀的決定。對她最有吸引力、最具神秘色彩、我認為令她的舞蹈如此迷人的原因，也正是這些形式。

W：崔莎對傳統(tǒng)舞蹈風格也有顛覆，《西班牙舞》與我們常見的弗拉明戈舞都不一樣。它是怎樣的一支舞蹈？

S：正如你所了解的那樣，這個舞蹈要求五名舞者站成一排，舞蹈中最重要的部分是他們必須位于兩堵墻之間，就像作品《沿著墻壁向下行走的人》一樣，崔莎利用墻壁分隔時間與空間。這支舞蹈用了偉大的美國民謠歌手鮑勃· 迪倫的歌曲，不過是由藝術(shù)家戈登· 萊特福特演唱的，名叫《清晨雨》。舞者們變換位置，微微地轉(zhuǎn)動臀部，然后一個舞者接續(xù)下一個舞者的動作：他們將雙臂抬過頭部，仿佛他們的上身在跳西班牙舞，下身只是不斷擺動。這個舞蹈中的西班牙舞的元素是非常驕傲、戲劇化的。但當舞者緊靠在一起撞到墻壁，又是非常有趣的。這支舞蹈的創(chuàng)作意圖就是有趣，同時尊重了像弗拉明戈或者其他西班牙舞蹈中的戲劇性，讓人有“哇，看這舞蹈形式多炫目”的感嘆，但又以極簡主義的風格編排。她開玩笑地說，她在利用建筑來構(gòu)建舞蹈的時間和空間。所以，我覺得崔莎在這個舞蹈中是有意地表現(xiàn)趣味性的。這支是她最流行也是被表演過最多次的舞蹈之一，這是有原因的。我認為其中一個原因是，雖然讓身體有律動地舞蹈是很困難的，這支舞蹈要求表演者要有一定的音樂靈性，但不需要跳躍和旋轉(zhuǎn)，所以各個年齡段的人都可以學習這支舞。

W：可見她是一個幽默的舞者，她自己也曾這么評價自己。在您看來，這種幽默從何而來？

S：是的，崔莎是一個很幽默、風趣、愛戲謔的人。當然，一位藝術(shù)家的性格會體現(xiàn)在她的作品里。崔莎喜歡使用雙關(guān)語，她的很多舞蹈十分有趣。如果你觀察細節(jié)，例如在她的作品《西班牙舞》中，舞者在做一些動作，然后“砰”的一聲，他們撞到墻上，舞蹈就結(jié)束了。在一些舞蹈中，她會玩游戲，比如她會告訴她的舞者，讓他們“自己消失”。當你在舞臺上表演的時候，怎么可能讓自己消失呢？于是那些舞者躺在地上，用手蒙住眼睛，好像你看不到他們，以此讓自己“消失”。有時她編排一個需要兩名舞者的動作，比如在《設置與重置》中，一位舞者會把手臂像這樣擺著，另一人從中鉆過去，當后來舞者重復這個動作時，不再有人從中鉆過去。你如果看過這個作品的話，你會知道這是崔莎在開第一個動作的玩笑。她在排舞的過程中，給她舞者的一些指令也是非常有意思的。她可以用語言來編排舞蹈。她會對她的舞者們說：你去這里……做這個……做那個……性感些……來點卓別林的味道……從中激發(fā)動作的靈感，這就是她實驗過程的一部分。最后，一些舞者會給這些滑稽的動作起外號。但她也會非常嚴肅，例如在根據(jù)巴赫的作品創(chuàng)作舞蹈時，她非常認真。但在編排她的第一部歌劇作品《奧菲歐》時，她曾告訴我，為了擺脫歐美歌劇的傳統(tǒng)創(chuàng)作方式，她會把角色想象成卡通人物，讓他們做非?？鋸埖氖虑?。在她的心目中，她總是有很多有趣的想法，并設法讓她的舞者完成體現(xiàn)這些想法的動作。

W：聽說，在訓練中她常會給舞者們一些“不可能完成的任務”，確實如此嗎？

S：“不可能完成的任務”，這句話太棒了！我不知道你是哪里聽來的，但是說得沒錯。從20世紀60年代初開始，新一代的舞者他們做結(jié)構(gòu)即興，給自己設定一個不可能完成的指令，然后看看會發(fā)生些什么。這樣做的目的在于對下列問題的思考：創(chuàng)新如何實現(xiàn)？如果帶著已經(jīng)形成的想法是否能產(chǎn)生創(chuàng)新？所以，如果一開始告訴自己做一些完全不可能的事情，比如在五分鐘或者五秒鐘內(nèi)，把身體的各部位疊成一條線，然后你的身體就會相應地做出反應。崔莎喜歡設想一些“不可能完成的”指令，然后告訴她的舞者，而往往出來的效果全是嶄新的、獨創(chuàng)的?；蛘咚龝幸恍┎豢赡艿幕蚩此撇豢赡艿南敕ǎ谒囊龑?，她的舞者們真的可以實現(xiàn)它們。她曾經(jīng)讓她的兩名舞者相向奔跑，想知道會產(chǎn)生什么樣的效果。這樣，在大腦意識到這些問題之前，身體已經(jīng)解決了這些問題。我想到她在1978年創(chuàng)作舞蹈《水上機車》時，我記不清她給自己的確切指令是什么了，但是我記得她給自己一個口頭的不可能完成的指令，試圖達到一些奇特的效果，因為如果這些指令不可能達成，你起碼能給出一些想象中的答案。所以說，她經(jīng)常使用這種方式編舞。而且因為她經(jīng)常通過舞動自己的身體琢磨出一些動作并教給她的舞者，可以說她用“不可能完成的任務”的理念去實現(xiàn)了“可能”。

W：崔莎的編舞與視覺藝術(shù)緊密聯(lián)系，比如她曾在一張紙上跳舞的同時，用她的雙腳畫了一張畫。這還是舞蹈嗎？或者舞蹈與其他視覺藝術(shù)之間是否有明晰的界限？

S：“是否還是舞蹈？”這是一個很有意思的問題。我和崔莎最初認識就是因為合作一個項目，她把它叫作《這是一幅畫》（It’s A Draw）。這是一個很能體現(xiàn)她幽默感的例子。因為在英語里“It’s a draw”的實際上是“打成平局”的意思，所以崔莎想表達舞蹈和視覺藝術(shù)之間打成平局：兩者不分輸贏，彼此地位平等，雙方也相互競爭，誰也無法取代誰。這個標題體現(xiàn)出的是崔莎的幽默和智慧，因為崔莎將黑炭筆夾在她的手趾和腳趾間，用黑炭筆和油性筆，邊舞蹈邊作畫。第一次表演這個節(jié)目的時候，她完全是即興，倒在地面再站起來，腳趾間夾上黑炭筆跳踢踏舞。她在紙面上作畫，留下精彩的痕跡，最終成為美麗的繪畫作品，而她的身體在空間中作畫。這些創(chuàng)作，無論是空間里的動作還是紙上的動作，無論是空中的動作還是舞臺上的動作都并無大的差別。所以我認為她在玩一種概念，即不管動作是在空中還是被記錄了下來，這些創(chuàng)作本質(zhì)上沒有區(qū)別—它們都是動作的符號，或是動作的軌跡。

W：崔莎· 布朗曾獲得勞森伯格獎，而我們知道勞森伯格是美國波普藝術(shù)的代表人物，他們兩人也是摯友。您是研究崔莎的專家，能否說說他們兩人的關(guān)系？

S：崔莎第一次見到勞森伯格是在她搬去紐約之后不久。她告訴過我，也告訴過很多人，那時候她還是在默斯· 坎寧漢舞團半工半讀的一名學生，她的工作是接電話。勞森伯格當時擔任舞團的藝術(shù)總監(jiān)，與默斯· 坎寧漢和約翰· 凱奇都很熟。勞森伯格時常打電話到團里，他和崔莎很多次在電話里都交談甚歡。當時崔莎并不知道他是誰，但他們已經(jīng)建立了默契。1963年，崔莎參觀勞森伯格在猶太展覽館里舉行的作品回顧展時，她才驚訝地發(fā)現(xiàn)，“天吶！勞森伯格原來是美國一位非常著名的藝術(shù)家！”這是勞森伯格第一個大型作品展，他當時正在逐步建立自己的事業(yè)。此后他們一直是朋友。勞森伯格在20世紀60年代中期開始涉足舞蹈圈，有時自己創(chuàng)作舞蹈作品，有時表演其他人的作品。崔莎在1979年登上劇院舞臺，她第一個想到要合作的人便是勞森伯格。那時，在一段長時期的合作之后，他已經(jīng)離開了默斯 · 坎寧漢舞團。崔莎與勞森伯格之間的友情，我不確定能夠完全描述出來?？傊麄冎g的關(guān)系非常特別，一部分是因為他們都比較幽默，另一方面是基于他們的“美國關(guān)聯(lián)”—比如崔莎曾經(jīng)跟我說，她在美國西北部靠近太平洋的家鄉(xiāng)，感恩節(jié)時她家里人會給她送凍三文魚，而勞森伯格由于來自得克薩斯，他家人會給他送凍火雞，諸如此類的事情。崔莎與勞森伯格一共合作過五部作品，勞森伯格負責設計舞美和服裝。1979年，他們首次合作作品《冰川的誘惑》。之后是《如果你看不見我》，其想法來源于勞森伯格。該作品將于明晚在上?！?017國際舞蹈日慶典之夜”演出，這是他們之間最簡單的一次合作。他們早期的合作內(nèi)容涉及攝影、攝像和燈光，而勞森伯格的服裝設計甚至包括絲印服裝。勞森伯格為崔莎的四部作品進行了舞臺設計。此次2017國際舞蹈日上演的作品是兩人合作的最后一部作品，讓崔莎· 布朗背對著觀眾跳舞的主意也是勞森伯格想的?；蛘邞撜f，勞森伯格為這支舞蹈制定了規(guī)則，要求崔莎編排一個背對著觀眾的舞蹈。崔莎當時非常驚訝，“如果我背對著觀眾，觀眾不會覺得我很無禮嗎？”勞森伯格還為該作品設計了音樂和服裝。

W：我們都知道今年國際舞蹈日崔莎· 布朗的獻詞是您整理的。作為她的密友，在您看來，她是一個怎樣的人？

S：崔莎 · 布朗是我迄今為止見過最非凡的人。她非常聰明!有些人思維敏捷，另外一些人協(xié)調(diào)性好，而崔莎兩者兼?zhèn)?。她的幽默也很特別，正是因為她是一位身心深度結(jié)合的人，所以她可以用她的身體訴說，無人能及。作為一位有如此驚人的、偉大的、輝煌的成就以及藝術(shù)貢獻的人，她又是如此善良，如此謙虛。她的藝術(shù)體現(xiàn)著她這樣的想法—“當我登上舞臺，你能感覺到我是一個活生生的人，你能感覺到我的人性。你看到我呼吸，看到我在看著你?！睙o論是舞臺上還是現(xiàn)實生活中，她皆是如此。她關(guān)愛她的舞者，對于他們的切身利益都非常關(guān)注。她的獻詞來源于過去一些場合中她對藝術(shù)的一些評論。正如她的獻詞所說，她對藝術(shù)對于人類的重要性深信不疑。她認為，舞蹈作為一種非語言的藝術(shù)形式，在連結(jié)不同的文化、社會中起著特殊的作用。這也是崔莎一直想要傳達的信息之一。

W：謝謝您接受我們的訪問，讓我們能夠如此接近崔莎· 布朗這位舞蹈藝術(shù)大師和她的舞蹈作品！

（中文翻譯：鄔鈞宜、湯益明 責任編輯：劉青弋、孫曉弋）

About the Author:Susan Rosenberg, female, Consulting Historical Scholar at the Trisha Brown Dance Company, Director of the Master’s Degree Program for the Museum Administration of St. John’s University in New York, Associate Prof essor of Art History.Research interests: dance choreography, art history, and visual art studies. WU Jun-yi, female, reporter at Shanghai Media Group.