Caitlin Corbett Dance Company.

MOBIUS, BOSTON JANUARY 24-27, 1996 REVIEWED BY IRIS M. FANGER

Caitlin Corbett has been presenting intelligent, well-crafted works in the Boston area since 1 984. Her company of dancers mirrors her own image, which is assertive, and technically lush without bragging about it. She has an interest in ordinary movement as well and likes to mix real folks into her pieces, contrasting them with the members of her troupe.

The choreography is not keyed to the sound scores, arranged by Ann Steuernagel, which serve as a collage of pop and every other kind of music, noise, and, for this concert, a spoken parable about the mating of a hairy woman with an American frontiersman.

The program premiere, if I Tip Over, choreographed for five women, begins with an odd little solo for Amy Cohen, assigned the task of carrying a black bird stuck in her mouth. She performs a loose-limbed, Raggedy Ann dance that includes a twisting torso, floating arms, and a sense of tipping the body to the limits of gravity. Snatches of "Michoachan" by the Banda de Zirahuen connect a series of disparate short numbers that make up the work. The dancers, in solos, various groupings, and occasional unison quintets, walk on and off the stage. Helena Chang appears in an Esther Williams knockoff, a sequined bathing suit that is a startling change from the severe black tank suits on the other dancers. Mariorie Morgan, who wears her glasses onstage--obviously a hometown idea, seen earlier this season at Boston Ballet--plays leader for a group segment that sends Janet Slifka and the other dancers scooping gulps of space through the upper levels of the large studio. Later, Morgan returns in a solo distinguished by a costume of men's and women's underpants worn over her leotard.

The story about the hairy woman, accompanied by Tonya Lockyer's solo, is the longest segment of the piece, constructed in the manner of a freight train of countless cars that moves through the night without stopping.

Corbett's style descends from the people she danced with in New York City, particularly Wendy Perron. For this outing Corbett performed in only one piece, a two-duet excerpt with Jennifer Polins from the 1993 Green is Blue. (The program also included interrupting Sleep from 1994.) If Corbett's vocabulary is hard to characterize because the underpinnings of training that give it a constant flow and clarity of form are disguised under a languid delivery of movement and gesture, there is no mistaking the command of her vision. It's as if the issue of dancing should be part and parcel of everyday life--just like breathing but no big deal.