VIEW: TRISHA BROWN.

The most interesting thing about the Trisha Brown Dance Company's May 2-14, 2000, season at the Joyce Theater was the appearance of the choreographer herself in four solos, one of which--Water Motor--hadn't been seen since it was first made in 1978.

Brown has long used her own body as a testing ground for the invention of a new movement vocabulary, and it is both fascinating and extraordinary to still (she is in her early 60s) watch the easy deployment of limbs and torso, the apparently disconnected, slithery propulsions and the deliberately prosaic layering of movement, that have formed the basis of her work. In Water Motor, Brown, dressed in loose mint-colored trousers and lilac leotard, swings her legs and arms loosely, her body sometimes tilting sideways, sometimes undulating so that the arms curve into seemingly involuntary shapes. The casual, everyday nature of the gestures--not stretched or shaped in conformance to a style or technique--and the straightforward manner of performance belie the detail that Brown builds into the solo. Little rotations of the wrists and shoulders, rolls of the head, movements through the ball of the foot: all provide a layer of nuance and timing that eloquently transforms the quotidian into the theatrical.

Like Water Motor, the 1975 Locus is performed in silence, and shows Brown purposefully moving through seemingly unconnected sequences that gradually acquire a compelling logic. The solo moves from one square of light to another, and Brown appears to be both following and eluding imaginary geometric lines within that square as she twists her body sideways and forward, jumping over an illusory rope, hooking an elbow up to a corner while kicking a leg in the opposite direction.

In both solos (as in Accumulation with Talking Plus Water Motor, a 1986 Jonathan Demme-directed film shown at some performances, and If you couldn't see me, a 1994 work in which Brown never faces the audience), the movement is uninflected, rippling through space in its own time, to the body's own rhythms. Watching Brown perform these dances is a lesson in reading those dances that she makes on other bodies--and a reminder of the genius it takes to transform what is personal and natural into art.