In this video created for Korean television broadcast, Yvonne Rainer explains that although she is performing a solo initially choreographed in 1966, she has mainly abandoned live performance in favor of making films. When she made Trio A, the idea was to generate “a continuum of movement” that would incorporate many details and different parts of the body and performance space but would maintain a sense of “serene continuity.” She had worked on the dance for six months, and it became the first section of The Mind Is a Muscle (1966–68). In the video, which appears to be a rehearsal for a public performance of the dance, a confident, mid-career Rainer moves across the wooden floor in thoughtful and elegant movements, incorporating bends at various joints, slight pauses in poses, and rolls on the floor, rarely executing the same motion twice. When this video appeared in 1982, it demonstrated that Rainer’s international reputation as a dancer was solidified, at a time when she had already directed her energies elsewhere, including toward filmmaking.
Used with Permission. © Yvonne Rainer.
