Choreographing as doing historiography. The representation of 1980’s New York in Trisha Brown’s Set and Reset (1983)

Abstract

In this paper, I offer an interpretation of Trisha Brown’s Set and Reset (1983) that focuses on the temporal structure of the choreography and unveils it as a representation of 1980’s New York. If, as Godfrey (2007) believes, the methodological freedom accorded to art permits it to find a language capable of representing reality in a way that differs from traditional historiography, then Set and Reset offers a perfect example of this alternative historiography and of dance as a means of accessing history in synchronic and synesthetic fashion.