NO BITE IN BAM'S `DOGS,' GARTH FAGAN DANCE KICKS AND THRUMS

This article originally appeared in the Culture section of Bloomberg News on October 19, 2006.

Oct. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Interviewed just before the premiere of her ambitious new work, ``Dogs,'' Sarah Michelson promised to transform the prestigious site she was using -- BAM's Harvey Theater. She also announced that this piece would be dance-centered, in contrast to her usual mode of conceptual or performance art.

None of this turned out to be true.

Thought by many who patrol the cutting edge of dance to be of first importance in the field, Michelson likes to use her sites in what she thinks of as unconventional ways.

More often than not, they're faint echoes of yesteryear's experiments, such as reversing the position of performers and audience or, here, having a black curtain descend at unpredictable intervals to cut off the view of the stage.

In the case of ``Dogs,'' Michelson hasn't transformed the Harvey. All she's done is decorate it.

She has created a chic, surrealist black-and-white living room, bordered and hung with gigantic theatrical light fixtures. A bold floor-covering borrows its pattern from Middle Eastern art. The furniture is sparse, white and filigreed. A long table holds a platter of tiny roasted fowl.

Three women populate the scene, their wardrobe shifting between black and white floating robes and leotards. Who they are and what they're up to remain steadfastly enigmatic.

Parker Lutz, Michelson's longtime creative partner, seems to be the presiding goddess of the place, while the dark- haired Michelson and the blond Jennifer Howard shadow and mirror each other's moves like inseparable, slightly hostile twins.

Pink Fog

The dramatic lighting is as much a player in the piece as the human figures. The pink-tinted fog that invades the entire theater in the second half of the show, along with a few subsidiary characters, is a touch too much. Both the decor and the scenario of provocative hints owe much to Jean Cocteau.

As for dancing, the characters do dance, after a fashion. To Mike Iverson's and Delibes's music, they reiterate a few basic ballet configurations endlessly, like mantras.

The three principal women also nibble occasionally at the poultry. Eventually they talk their way through an absurdist tea party in which the declaration ``It tastes like dog'' does what little it can to account for the title of the piece.

What Michelson has actually created with ``Dogs'' is not choreography, but an installation -- that darling of the visual arts -- that moves through time. An hour and 25 minutes, to be exact.

Garth Fagan

A tall, lithe man, chest bare and arms glowing like pale amber in the stage light, bounds onto the stage in a leap that recalls the familiar highway sign for ``Deer Crossing.''

He's Norwood Pennewell, the longtime star of Garth Fagan Dance, which is at the Joyce Theater through Oct. 22. His soaring, perfectly coordinated leap introduced the company's opening-night program, which went on to feature Fagan's newest work, ``Senku.''

Fagan says that he created ``Senku'' to show the beauty of different generations dancing together -- the athletic feistiness of the young, the more settled wisdom of the elders. But the dance doesn't come across that way.

Steve Humphrey, its oldest performer and still powerful at 54, has only a supporting role, while Pennewell, at 47, is the image of youth, buoyant and flexible. No matter, ``Senku'' is rewarding on other terms.

The first of its four sections is a long riveting solo danced by Khama Phillips. It alternates moments of intense, rooted-to-the-earth stillness with brief, violent moves: martial-arts kicks, whirling arms, thrumming feet, rapid rolls on the floor. If it were performed on its own at a gala, it would bring the house down.

Tender Pair

A duet that explores the relationship between a young woman just beginning to encounter life's big troubles (Annique Roberts) and a succoring female mentor (Nicolette Depass) is eloquent and tender. The group section that follows it has not yet gelled.

Pennewell gets the last word with a solo that intersperses laconic moseying-around with tight, forceful gestures and discouraged collapses. Fagan may have meant him to represent a man dealing with the ravages of age -- or perhaps a choreographer, in the process of birthing a new work.

``Senku'' is accompanied by William Chapman Nyaho on piano, playing vibrant selections from four composers of African descent.

Sarah Michelson's ``Dogs'' is at the BAM Harvey Theater, 651 Fulton St., Brooklyn, through Oct. 21. Information: (1)(718) 363-4100 or http://www.bam.org.

Garth Fagan Dance is at the Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Ave., at 19th Street, through Oct. 22. Information: (1)(212) 242-0800 or http://www.joyce.org.

© 2006 Bloomberg L.P. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.