Trisha Brown

Demme captures the late choreographer Trisha Brown performing a meta-narrative dance work.

Made in 1980, this film explores the contemporary dance scene through the work of seven New York-based choreographers. They discuss the nature of dance and the evolution of their own work. Filmed at rehearsals, performances, and during interviews, the film is a unique primary source. The artistic roots of these seven artists can be found in Martha Graham's concern with modern life as a subject for dance and in Merce Cunningham's emphasis on the nature of movement. In the 1960s, the interaction of art forms generated choreographic innovations. Especially influential was John Cage, whose radical ideas served as a point of departure for much of the new choreography. Each of the choreographers in Making Dances draws inspiration from the Graham/Cunningham tradition, yet each makes a highly distinctive statement. Structure, movement in non-fictive time and space, and the nature of movement itself are recurring themes.

A filmed record of a solo performance by American postmodern dancer and choreographer Trisha Brown. In order to better understand the dance, Mangolte learned to perform it herself. Mangolte shot Brown as she performed the solo twice, and then on the third take she decided to film in slow motion: "I shot slow motion, knowing that it would reveal the dance and the movement in a totally different context... the slow motion version permits a second look at the choreography, and the spectators can marvel at what they remember and also what they missed the first time around."

Premiere performance of Set and Reset at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn, New York, USA, 21 October 1983

In contrast to the front view shown in the theatrical version of 'Set and Reset,' here the roving camera provides an intimate experience as though seen by one of the dancers.

A natural activity under the stress of an unnatural setting. Gravity reneged. Vast scale. Clear order. You start at the top, walk straight down, stop at the bottom. All those soupy questions that arise in the process of selecting abstract movement according to the modern dance tradition -- what, when, where, and how -- are all solved in collaboration between choreographer and place. If you eliminate all those eccentric possibilities that the choreographic imagination can conjure and just have a person walk down an aisle, then you see the movement as the activity. The paradox of one action working against another is very interesting to me, and is illustrated by Man Walking Down the Side of a Building, where you have gravity working one way on the body and my intention to have a naturally walking person working in the other way.

A Manhattan professor's (William Raymond, Larry Loonin) unseen artist wife mocks his pitiful existence.