David Dorfman Dance.

The Kitchen New York, New York February 26-March 8, 2003

See Level, David Dorfman's evening-length world premiere quartet plus solo, was clearly rooted in the playful, athletic physicality for which Dorfman has been known since his company's inception in 1985. Abby Crain, Paul Matteson, Jennifer Nugent, and Joseph Poulson downplayed the virtuoso feats of strength and agility in Dorfman's material by appearing organic, familiar, and gravity bound. Their apelike crouching and cavorting references to martial arts intersected several modern lineages. Contact-based partnering showcased the dancers' individuality.

The piece had a veneer of content, a metaphor about the body as political cartography, but this was mostly treated with a slipping-on-a-banana-peel sensibility. The four bodies took turns placing themselves in each other's kinesthetic shoes, trying to perform movement with their partner's energy. Intermittent snippets of conversation suggesting rehearsal out-takes rang with a self-consciously clever sitcom snap, ultimately not terribly enlightening or deep. Once Dorfman's vocabulary became predictable, the movement attack became stale and the pacing too similar; a block of large, abstract partnering was sure to be followed by a block of something rambunctious, light, and gestural. The dancers often lost themselves in their own impetus, to the detriment of spatial clarity. LIKE TEAM SPORTS, THE EXECUTION OF THE MATERIAL BECAME MORE IMPORTANT THAN ITS FORM.

Samuael Topiary's striking video design of lapis lazuli seas and textural close-ups of human skin created a rich visual environment with Blu's lighting design. Chris Peck's score was generated live--mostly from the manipulation of computer keyboards--and the minimal activities of the musicians seated at the side of the stage floor (Peek, Jaime Fennelly, and Stephen Rush) became a welcome juxtaposition to the horseplay onstage. The costumes by Naoko Nagata, who has been designing brilliant things for nearly every choreographer in New York lately, didn't work here, their tunics evoking left-overs from Battlestar Galactica.

Dorfman's solo, embedded in the center of the evening, was surprisingly moving after the easy sentiment of the rest of the work. His galoot-like presence was so real, so immediate. His dancing was overtly physical, like the quartet's, but revealed more personhood. A disturbing silent entreaty evolved, only casually relating to the other material, channeling a host of issues without defining them. This punch-drunk and eloquent comment on the current political troubles of our planet achieved what was only hinted at elsewhere, yet remained acutely personal.