Dance says what words can't. (Kickoff).

ON THE EVENING OF SEPTEMBER 12, 2001, ONE DAY AFTER THE MOST AUDACIOUS TERRORIST ACT IN THE HISTORY OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION, LA CUADRA DE SEVILLA'S FLAMENCO PRODUCTION OF SALVADOR TAVORA'S REVISIONIST Andalusian Carmen was given its American premiere. Both the management of the Spanish company and the presenter, New York's City Center, were deeply concerned about what impression the performance might project to a city in shock over the loss of more than 6,000 lives, the collapse of the World Trade Center's buildings, and the attack on the nation's military nerve center, the Pentagon. Other New York showplaces were closed: Broadway, off-Broadway, and Lincoln Center, but City Center's decision to forge ahead turned out to be courageous, heeding Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's plea to resume our daily lives as quickly as possible. The decision symbolized a determination by people around the world to show solidarity and defiance and dignity in the terrible weeks that were to follow.

It is significant that this event in midtown, where the smoke, dust, and thick, hot smells lay like a smoldering blanket, was a dance performance. Given free to the public as a gift from the cast and the producers, it turned out to be one of the earliest expressions of the revival of the city's famous spirit. Dance somehow seemed to be the best medium in which to express those emotions where words were doomed to fail.

COMPANY FOUNDER AND CHOREOGRAPHER Tavora's interpretation of Carmen and the early nineteenth-century era in which the legendary Carmen de Triana is supposed to have lived is surprisingly more defiant and political than the Romantic versions that we may know from the French writer Prosper Merimee's novel Carmen or through Georges Bizet's beloved opera. This Carmen incorporates an Andalusian cornet marching band, drums, two flamenco guitarists, three women folk singers who comment on the action like a Greek chorus, ecclesiastical ceremonies, and a magnificent white stallion with which Carmen dances.

One of many striking images in this flamenco-theatrical work, for example, is a visual reference to Delacroix's famous painting Liberty Leading the People. Carmen, symbol of the new independent woman, holds high a flag emblazoned with the words Viva la Constitucion. And in Tavora's version, Carmen not only works in a cigarette factory but also becomes a revolutionary and defender of the first Spanish Constitution (1812). Dancer Lalo Tejada gives us a Carmen whose love for Don Jose Lizarrabengoa (Marco Vargas) is mixed with her politics and strong, if dangerous, defense of oppressed working women.

Carmen's death as a result of her ideals and her defiance and determination, expressed through dance, hit a resounding, almost physical, response in the mood of the audience at City Center on opening night. Solidarity and camaraderie and goodwill seemed to fill the auditorium, and there was a sense of New Yorkers uniting, as they rarely do, and resisting the dangers of despair. At no other time, except perhaps during the weeks following the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, can I remember this particular mix of shared emotions.

In addition to a heroic style of neoflamenco dancing--a curiously assertive blend of different styles of flamenco with Spanish classical and theatrical forms--the evening's performance was redolent with symbolism that chilled the blood and stirred the imaginations of the audience in the aftermath of the tragic events. From the beginning of the one-and-three-quarter-hours performance, a point of white light downstage center focused on a ceremonial Moorish dagger that signaled that this was to be a dance of death. I thought of a swaying, heavy, coiled cobra. Carmen's solo--or could we call it a duet?--with that dangerous knife left no doubt about her fate. And yet, at times submissive and pleading, at others frenzied and aggressive, Carmen challenged the knife's central presence and determined not to become its victim. Although she lost that struggle in the end, her spirit emerged unconquered.

In a reaction to the emotion of the previous two days, I found myself associating the glittering dagger, stuck with its bit of scarlet ribbon to the floor, with the hijackers' methods. Reportedly, the hijackers had used knives--probably plastic knives--and box cutters to kill the airliners' crews. Box cutters horrify me, and I think that, threatened with one, I would do anything I was told to do. Or would I? The dancers' performance raised that question. And apparently a group of passengers on one of the doomed planes had overcome the fear of razor-sharp blades, rushed the hijackers, and crashed the plane in the woods of western Pennsylvania far short of its intended goal.

Had our imaginations wandered far from the dancing onstage? I doubt if anybody missed the unintended parallels between what had happened the day before on September 11 and what was now taking place in the City Center. Or had the dancing become at the moment the deepest possible human response to the unspeakable?

I REMEMBER ANOTHER DANCE EVENT a decade ago last January. We had gathered at New York City's 92nd Street Y to celebrate choreographer Anna Sokolow's eightieth birthday with an evening of her works. Just before the testimonials and performances began, we learned that Soviet-made Scud missiles, launched from Iraq, had begun landing in the suburbs of Tel Aviv. I wrote in this column at that time about that evening's celebration, which defiantly continued as planned despite the threat of war in the Middle East and the potential destruction of families and friends in Israel. "Cathartic," I wrote of the dances," ... they were a celebration--a celebration of the human spirit."

I suppose we could say that not much has really changed politically since then; yet now, after September 11, everything has changed. What remains is the human spirit.

Richard Philp has been with Dance Magazine since 1970, first as managing editor and then for eleven years as editor in chief He is a writer, editor, and speaker, known for his strong support of the arts.