Trisha Brown Company.

The title of Trisha Brown's newest dance, M (Theatre de la Ville, Paris, November 8-12, 1994), might stand for Musical Offering (the title of the J.S. Bach work to which it is set), and also for (Diane) Madden, a member of the Trisha Brown Company, who has long been an important exemplar of the choreographer's work. Alone at the beginning, in a simple black leotard and drifting black and white cape (by Irie), she dances with unpredictable, meticulous, fluid lunges and swoops, each movement impulse limpidly rendered. Gradually, other dancers file on at the back, with precise, mechanical swings and dips, and Madden wanders uncertainly among them, occasionally attempting to imitate this style.

Then the surprise: into Brown's kinetically charged universe comes a Bach trio sonata (her first incursion into non-contemporary music), and the rest of the eighteen-minute work is occupied with developing possible choreographic responses to this vast baroque machine. Four men and four women execute simple, symmetrical walks and turns, graphically clear arm movements, tiny frozen pauses, and line formations as geometric as La Bayadere's Shades. Then comes a duo of luscious, softer texture and finally, Madden alone again, moving with bigger, sweeping steps on a darkening stage: a mysterious, portentous figure that may indicate where Brown is headed with M, to be premiered in expanded form at La Monnaie in Brussels in May.