Mature Dancers Take Fearless Flight.

A LEAKY THEATER ceiling and buzzing feedback from the sound system didn't affect a recent run-through of choreographer Mark Dendy's new work for Jeanne Ruddy Dance, premiering June 21-25 in Philadelphia. Dendy joked about the distractions and cued the dancers to begin.

The fact that some dancers in Jeanne Ruddy Dance are over 40 might seem inconsequential to the piece or to the dancers' prowess. But Ruddy deliberately sought out maturity when she created this company of strong, artistically like-minded women. Their presence brings to mind Lauren Bacall's admonition to "enter with a point of view."

Dendy's premiere, titled No Fear of Flying--a reference to the Erica Jong novel--examines suburban women's roles in the '60s, at the dawn of the women's liberation movement. Dendy cast his three female dancers as stewardesses, reflecting the limited career options open to women of that era. In the prologue, Christine Taylor, Karen Carlson and Jeanne Ruddy perform a comedic rhythmic pantomime to the pilot's flight instructions. When the dancers trade their straitjacket-like flight uniforms for tulle ballet skirts there is a suggestion of the power, liberation and mystique of womanhood. The comedic and tragic aspects of his themes come together in an adagio section set to Peggy Lee's "Is That All There Is?"

Along with No Fear of Flying, the concert will feature a revival of Donlin Forman's piece From Pent-Up, Aching Rivers, a moving duet danced by Forman, the co-director of Buglisi/Foreman Dance, and Terese Capucilli, co-director of the Martha Graham Dance Company. The concert also will include Igal Perry's Voices and Echoes, set to an original score by John Mackey, performed live by a string quartet from the Curtis Institute of Music. Voices, a piece for four women that debuted at Philadelphia's 2000 Feet International Dance Festival last June, expresses the physicality and emotionality of feminine power. Ruddy is also preparing an as-yet untitled solo, set to Philip Glass's Violin Concerto.

"I work with Jeanne because we speak the same language," Dendy said of his fellow Graham veteran. "You get a different intensity with more seasoned performers than you do with dancers in their 20s. I can be more minimal and rely on the dancers to fill it with their special potency. They also take on so much more of the rehearsal responsibility to themselves, which frees me to create more and not have to be a rehearsal director. They know from experience with years with other choreographers that I could not care less if it's on seven or eight. I just want it together, and they get it together on their own."