June 5, 2002

A Sampler Calculated to Catch the Eye

By JACK ANDERSON

The Blue Muse Dance Project presented a choreographic showcase on Friday night at the Theater of the Riverside Church. Most of the works were more notable for their neat construction than for their flights of fancy.

Yet some choreographers devised eye-catching effects. Mayuna Shimizu, Blue Muse's founder and director, sent veiled dancers fluttering wispily in "Quicksand ・No Pain No Gain," then had them return unveiled like avenging spirits. Dancers slowly emerged from a huddle in Deborah Damast's "Erased Memories" and gathered again in combinations of varying pictorial effectiveness.

There were two strongly danced solos. In an excerpt from Earl Mosley's "Freedom," Matthew Rushing rose from a chair into fervent stretches and leaps. In Leonides Arpon's " . . . now that you've gone," Karah M. Abiog shook with sorrow and ran with desperation. If the solo had been slightly shorter, its impact might have been even greater.

Trimming could also have strengthened "Tamarisk," the work depicting some perpetually jittery people that was offered by Jennine Willett and 3rd Rail Dance.

Other choreographers emphasized patterns in space. Giada Ferrone kept assigning four dancers similar and contrasting duets and solos in "Pact." Dancers imitated one another in Richard Rivera's "Carbon Copies." And in excerpts from Danielle A. DePersis's "Bounce in 5," dancers moved briskly and sometimes with deliberate rigidity to a taped accompaniment that included a repeated statement about a man with a pocket calculator.

Many of the evening's dances looked choreographically calculated, and that was fine, for compositional thoughtfulness is preferable to messiness. But there were times when one longed for a union of thoughtfulness and imagination.