Out of Site: Trisha Brown's Roof Piece

Abstract

In the early 1970s, choreographer Trisha Brown, a SoHo pioneer, created site-specific dances reflective of her changing neighborhood. Her work—in particular her choreographic feat Roof Piece, performed along SoHo's skyline—reflected the shifting sociohistorical moment. Examining the physical, temporal, social, and symbolic space among Brown's dancers positioned upon the rooftops of SoHo, as well as the historic space between the performances of 1971 and 1973, and between these early performances and the recent restaging of Roof Piece in June 2011 along the High Line in Chelsea, I argue that the work's gestural movements formulate a kinetic parallel for contemporaneous political developments in Lower Manhattan.