With Fase , she worked to purify her process and free herself of predictable influences. Deciding to forgo the elaborate design, costume, and text components of her 1980 piece Asch , she took the music of Reich into a studio and tried to stay pure to his formula as an investigation into the possibilities of choreography. Fase tries to find meaning in the autonomous moving body and in a story without intention. Her work with American composer Steve Reich was not a direct collaborative work, but rather one of simpatico. Now this idea of emotion is somewhat relative.
Minimalism is about making things pure.
Thus, Fase is a repetitive piece in which one phrase is done again and again until changes develop in the tempo or spacing. The patterns develop on a vertical axis in a rectangle of white light. No curves here. Such intense exploration is an exercise in tenacity, for an audience as well as for a performer. As we listen to the endless cycle of sound and watch the patterns repeat before our eyes with little adjustment, a tension builds within.