[3][4] For several summers she studied with Louis Horst, José Limón, and Merce Cunningham at the American Dance Festival, then held at Connecticut College.
Subsequently, at the urging of fellow choreographers, Simone Forti and Yvonne Rainer, Brown moved to New York to study composition with Robert Dunn, who taught a class at Merce Cunningham's studio, based on John Cage's theories of chance.
[5] After moving to New York City in 1961, Brown trained with dancer Anna Halprin and became a founding member of the avant-garde Judson Dance Theater in 1962.
There she worked with experimental dancers Yvonne Rainer, Steve Paxton, Twyla Tharp, Lucinda Childs, and David Gordon.
[6] In the late 1960s Brown created her own works which attempted to defy gravity, using equipment such as ropes and harnesses, to allow dancers to walk on or down walls or to experiment with the dynamics of stability.
Brown’s exploration of gravity-defying concepts began with works like Planés (1968), which was notable for its use of rock climbing equipment, allowing dancers to “scale” performance walls, altering the viewer’s perception of gravity and verticality.
With 1978's Accumulation with Talking plus Watermotor, a complex solo combining elements of three other pieces, she demonstrated a mental and physical virtuosity seldom seen in the dance world, then or now.
Brown's rigorous structures, combined with pedestrian or simple movement styles and tongue-in-cheek humor brought an intellectual sensibility that challenged the mainstream "modern dance" mindset of this period.
[10] Brown’s Accumulation series (1971-1973) became an iconic representation of her choreographic process, utilizing simple, repetitive gestures that built up over time, forming complex patterns and sequences.
[8] This cycle of works reflected her commitment to anti-expressivity and the belief that dance could convey ideas without traditional emotive or narrative structures.
[9] Her Set and Reset (1983), a signature collaboration with Rauschenberg and Anderson, combined improvisational structures with rigorous composition, resulting in a visually and kinetically layered piece that showcased Brown’s ability to blend dance, art, and music seamlessly.
[9] The work’s intricate, spiraling choreography and distinctive use of translucent costumes allowed dancers to appear as if they were in continuous motion, further elevating Brown’s aesthetic of unpredictability and flow.
refers to Michel Guy, a former French minister of culture who died in 1990) is sculptural and kinetic, opening with a dancer running in figure-eight circles around the stage, slowing into loping motion down the center.
(1991), dedicated to Michel Guy, integrated sculptural elements with its choreography, as dancers moved through the stage space in complex patterns, embodying Brown’s fascination with motion as both a visual and spatial form.
[16] Also in a mirror duet drawn from a solo, If You Couldn't See Me (1994), Brown performed entirely with her back to the audience for ten minutes with an electronic "sound score" on a bare stage.
In recent years she has shown these drawings, including during a major multidisciplinary 2008 celebration of her work at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.
In 2009, the Chelsea gallery Sikkema Jenkins & Company, which represents her husband, Burt Barr, presented her first solo exhibition in New York, featuring work dating to the 1970s.
[22] In 2011, the Trisha Brown Dance Company took over the atrium of the Museum of Modern Art as part of a Performance Exhibition Series in conjunction with the survey "On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century".