Carmen Overture, Carmen Entre'acte, Spanish Dance

Carmen Overture

Music: George Bizet (from Carmen, 1875)
Choreography: Trisha Brown
Visual Presentation & Costume Design: Enrico Job
Lighting Design: Ken Tabachnick
Duration: 4 minutes
Premiere: December 10, 1986; Teatre di San Carlos (Naples, Italy)
Pacific Northwest Ballet Premiere: April 20, 2007 (Celebrate Seattle Festival)

Carmen Entre’acte

Music: George Bizet (from Carmen, 1875)
Choreography: Trisha Brown
Visual Presentation & Costume Design: Enrico Job
Lighting Design: Ken Tabachnick
Duration: 3 minutes
Premiere: December 10, 1986; Teatre di San Carlos (Naples, Italy)
Pacific Northwest Ballet Premiere: April 20, 2007 (Celebrate Seattle Festival)

Miranda Weese & Christophe Maraval in
Spanish Dance. Photo © Angela Sterling

Spanish Dance

Music: Gordon Lightfoot (“Early Mornin’ Rain,” performed by Bob Dylan)
Choreography: Trisha Brown
Costume Design: Enrico Job
Lighting Design: Ken Tabachnick
Duration: 5 minutes
Premiere: 1976; Trisha Brown Dance Company (Festival Musicales de la Sainte Baume, Provence, France)
Pacific Northwest Ballet Premiere: April 20, 2007 (Celebrate Seattle Festival)

A native of Aberdeen, Washington, Trisha Brown is an avant-garde choreographer who was part of the Greenwich Village Judson Dance Theater movement in the 1960s. Her innovations in dance are part of a postmodern aesthetic that sought to dismantle established boundaries between dance and non-dance movement. Founded in 1970, the Trisha Brown Dance Company has presented the work of its legendary artistic director for more than 35 years.

A dancer slowly raises arms like a magnificent Spanish dancer and travels forward in time to Bob Dylan’s “Early Mornin’ Rain.” When dancer A touches up against the back of dancer B, dancer B slowly raises her arms like a magnificent Spanish dancer and the two travel forward, touching up against the back of dancer C, and so on until they all reach the wall.

Notes courtesy of Trisha Brown Dance Company. Used by permission.