Quebec Dance Transcends (Most) Borders. (Reviews: New York).

QUEBEC PRESENTS VARIOUS VENUES NEW YORK, NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 28-OCTOBER 7, 2001

The acts of terrorism on September 11 brought the New York dance and theater community to a numbing halt during a month that usually ushers in a host of artistic activity. Much of Quebec Presents, a monthlong New York City festival honoring arts organizations from Quebec, was curtailed, partly because it was impossible to get scenery, costumes, and dancers across the heavily patrolled Canadian-U.S. border in time for performances. Although two performances scheduled for mid-September, Compagnie Marie Chouinard and Benoit Lachambre of Compagnie par b.l.eux, were forced to cancel, four other companies were fortunately able to perform. O Vertigo, Coleman & Lemieux, Dominique Porte/Systeme D, and Jose Navas's Compagnie Flak were warmly welcomed to Manhattan, despite the unsettling mood of a world unhinged by terrorism. But just as Londoners dutifully attended the theater during the Blitz of World War II, New Yorkers turned out to see dance.

An appropriately stark tone colored Laurence Lemieux's Novembre, giving it the look of a black-and-white French film shot through a snowy windowpane. Dressed in thick sweaters, the four dancers, including Lemieux and her husband, Bill Coleman, danced with admirable weight and balance. Pianist Anthony de Mare skillfully played the intricate contemporary score by Christopher Butterfield as the dancers matched the melancholic adagio sections with slow-motion choreography and faster segments with briskness.

On the same evening at St. Mark's Church Danspace in the East Village, Dominique Porte/Systeme D presented Retard probable 5 mn. Whimsy ruled in Porte's absurdist landscape, where sound effects popped and crackled as the four dancers zigzagged through a maze of spastic, sometimes frantic choreography. Dressed in a sarong, the twiggy Fabrice Merlen resembled a skittish spider as he rushed around the stage. When linked in chains, the performers appeared to be human synapses or computer bytes powered by electrical impulses. Enormous wooden blocks made humorous footwear for the dancers, then were discarded. Don't ask why. In this piece, understanding seemed to be the booby prize.

Choreographer Ginette Laurin and her company O Vertigo have long been noted for their unbridled experimentation. Luna, which the troupe performed at the Joyce Theater the first week of October, showed Laurin testing the combination of stage technology with her characteristically physical choreography. The action of Luna changed smoothly from one scene to the next with the expertise of cinematic editing.

At one point, dancers appeared on different planes on the stage, some set behind a scrim in a series of brilliantly lit cameos. Their breathing amplified by microphones, the ten dancers in Luna signaled each other with cryptic mime. Enormous magnifying glasses enlarged faces and limbs to funhouse proportions; the women then glided across the stage in silk hoop skirts and were suddenly hoisted onto the men's shoulders. Anne Barry, placed statuesquely on a moving platform, became a living geological formation as video footage of oceans and flowing lava were projected onto her enormous dress. And videocameras set at unexpected angles let the audience in on the secrets of what happened in remote corners of the stage. The stunning set and lighting design by Axel Morgenthaler tended to upstage any choreography that got in its way, and the seventy-five-minute piece admittedly had its lapses in sustaining attention, but the brilliant parts were unforgettable.

Using no set and minimal lighting, Jose Navas of Compagnie Flak offered up the most expressive and satisfying dancing of any of the Quebec troupes. For a solid hour, accompanied by the wonderful cellist Walter Haman, Navas detailed every step of his own choreography with superb concentration. Called simply the Haman/Navas Project (2001), Navas danced solo to a selection of music by composers Allan Hovhaness and Benjamin Britten. Starting off with an elegant andante passage, Navas moved on to the crisp, unmannered race-car speed that he injects into his choreography so well. Interacting with the cellist, Navas traced his hand around the musician as if swathing himself in the fabric of the music. The dancer's phrasing was so passionately intimate, it was hard not to feel as if you knew him personally.

Navas, well known to New York audiences as a Bessie Award winner, performed the last night of his engagement at St. Mark's Church on what was coincidentally the first day of retaliation by U.S. armed forces against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Before the concert began, people in the audience spoke nervously about living in a changed world. From the first few moments, however, the performance took on the feeling of a ceremony with the deep resonance of the cello in the sanctuary and Navas's eloquent artistry. It became clear that great dancing was there, as always, to guide and teach us, no matter what the circumstances.