No Longer Readymade.

Benoit Lachambre shakes his head so ferociously his features blur, and signals frantically with his hands in arcane semaphore. Hahn Rowe's electric violin crackles with pounding urgency. Then, like living scrapbooks, Renee Lemieux and David Hernandez stand for a long moment, shirts pulled over their heads; their naked torsos are embossed with old snapshots and faded mementos of the past. When they move, they remain close, but unconnected, embracing themselves, then reaching out as if searching for companionship the other cannot provide.

The world of No Longer Readymade is shadowy (lighting by Michael Hulls), like the dark emotions of the characters. Sculptured birds (by Sarah Baud) hang head-high at the rear, just in front of four heavy wood panels with chairs in the spaces in between (set design by Andre Lepecki)--cells where these four prisoners of their own psyches reside.

Young, masterful choreographer Meg Stuart saturates the simplest moves with inner dialogue, drenched with emotion. In her own riveting solo she simply transfers junk from one side pocket of a man's suit jacket to the other with increasing frenzy, until the stage is littered with coins, paper scraps, flowers. She removes her dress and stands, vulnerable, in her underwear, with jacket and dress hanging from her outstretched arms on wooden hangers.

Not only do Stuart's choices hit home emotionally, her movement orchestration is superb. In the climactic quartet, paired dancers, laid out like corpses beside small piles of their belongings, move in perfect unison without visual cues: hands reach; arms twine across chests that lift with a sigh. Now men are together, and women are with women; now women pair with men. All sit bolt upright as one and slowly crank extended legs around like a vane in a breeze. They attempt to stand, but repeatedly collapse, always rebounding into new kinetic variations. The surging bodies, at first only wails of despair, become through their relentless persistence cathartic sobs that finally wash the soul clean.