The New York Times-20080126-All of Nature on the Stage- in Sound- Light and Moves- -Review-

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All of Nature on the Stage, in Sound, Light and Moves; [Review]

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Jordan Fuchs's new Thicket is a small, neatly constructed piece that didn't just fill the stage on Thursday at Danspace Project. Mr. Fuchs created an entire universe of throbbing, sprinting natural life in just 45 minutes, with four dancers and a mysterious score by Andy Russ. Carol Mullins's stark lighting shifts, from pitch-black night to blazing orange-honey noon, added immeasurably to the dance's quiet power.

Mr. Fuchs is said to be fond of using improvisational material, and indeed some of the choreography has the springy rebound and levering look of the influential form contact improvisation. That may have helped to create the strange effect of the opening passages, in which the dancers seemed to move like magnets drawn and repelled by one another. There was a sense not of pathways or travel, just of irresistible natural forces at work.

Then Mr. Fuchs's gift for plotting took over, sending Thicket along its way in a seamless succession of group, duet and solo dancing, to a score that incorporated piano and the sounds of an audience coughing and the dancers breathing. An initially soft hum of frog and bird chirpings and rustlings, bird cries and the lightest of rains eventually took over, heard on headphones worn by the audience, which was seated in a large, loose ring around the dancing. Shut your eyes and you could smell the night fragrance of Cape Cod Bay.

The pace and thrust of the movement built gradually, with the dancers' gestures growing more delicate and suddenly a little evocative, particularly those of Mr. Fuchs and Megan Boyd. At times a dancer would leave the space and walk or jog un-self-consciously along a side aisle to get to the next entrance spot. Inexplicably, those moments made the feeling of inexorable nature even stronger. To paraphrase the poet John Ashbery, a good deal too much is made of understanding.

The cast also included Storme Sundberg and Toby Billowitz, both dark-haired, eruptive complements to the fair, contemplative Mr. Fuchs and Ms. Boyd. Joy Havens's earth-colored tops and trousers, pocked with small, discreet rips, completed the sense of governing nature that filled the magical Thicket.

Thicket continues through Saturday at Danspace Project, St. Mark's Church, 131 East 10th Street, East Village; (212) 674-8194, danspaceproject.org.

[Illustration]PHOTO: Thicket,: a 45-minute work by Jordan Fuchs at Danspace Project, features Mr. Fuchs, rear left, Megan Boyd, sitting, Toby Billowitz and Storme Sundberg in a program of group, duet and solo dancing.(PHOTOGRAPH BY TOM BRAZIL)