`ATTRACTORS' EXERTS POWER.

STEPHEN PETRONIO COMPANY

JOYCE THEATER
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
OCTOBER 17-22, 2000

Although Stephen Petronio made it known that Strange Attractors was inspired by aspects of chaos theory, in actuality, Petronio's approach to space in this work favors form over chaos.

Three distinct musical choices contribute to the contrasting tone of the dance's three sections. The Prelude is accompanied by "Without You I'm Nothing" by Placebo (with David Bowie). The irony of the song is not lost when the curtain rises on four men and four women facing the audience, scrunched up in a line to create a horizontal sculpture. Through understated but potent touching, pushing and pulling, this mobile sculpture shifts from images of erotic angst to those of brutality, from unity to isolation. Lit dramatically from above, the dancers never relinquish their physical attachment or their spatial orientation in this linear orgy.

In Part I, the dancers exchange brief black garb for silky gray pajamas for the men and "little black dresses" for the women. Michael Nyman's lush score, with alternate emphasis on strings and piano, complements the quirkiness of Petronio's choreography perfectly. The facile transitions between mercurial gesturing and crystalline shapes is eternally surprising in Petronio's work. The echoes of classical form and vocabulary resonate through startlingly fresh configurations as the dancers' bodies enact the unexpected. Legs fold in from an attitude with vivid sensuality, and perfectly aligned bodies are suddenly askew. All is balanced by repeated linear formations that reorient the viewer before the next bracing onslaught. Solos, duets and groups evolve and dissolve with effortless invention.

UNKLE's "Eye for an Eye" music, written by James Lavelle and Richard File, vies for dominance in Part II with Anish Kapoor's hanging silver discs, which reflect the dancers, the audience and the lights. Here, the inventive linear spatial design of the first sections disintegrates into predictable symmetry and the intense activity is of one tone. The physicality in parallel duets reflects imagery taken from boxing or martial arts and, while it differs from the preceding sections, it does no more than that. Limited by the score, the lingering image of Part II is less of the feisty dancers in their tight black turtlenecks and briefs than of reflecting discs and an insistent beat.

[Part I premiered in San Francisco, November 1999; see review by Rita Felciano, Dance Magazine, February 2000.]