The New York Times-20080129-See Spot Run- Howl and Move to the Music- -Review-

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See Spot Run, Howl and Move to the Music; [Review]

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Mary Seidman has spent a lifetime watching dogs, to judge by her charming new WeDOGS, performed on Sunday afternoon at the Ailey Citigroup Theater. Dogs played, fought over chew toys, romanced their owners and taught their progeny good manners in this suite of nine dances, set to singularly well-chosen scores, including works by Edgar Varese and Murray Weinstock. And Ms. Seidman found the perfect performers in seven company members, two guest artists and seven impressively un-self-conscious children.

Agile pups, the children learned quickly from their canine parents about everything from how to hunt and play (Domingo Estrada Jr. and little Akiya Henry as boxer dogs) to how to settle into a large cushion (Maria Garvey and Abby Rosler as pugs).

Ms. Seidman managed to make the dogs' antics as much dance as canine behavior. The elders and their youngsters were also played by Katie Dorn, Sophie Steinman-Gordon and Zoe Hockenberry (Weimaraners); Alice White and Turiya Hamlet Adkins (border collies); Seth Miner and Rory Lyndon (Great Danes); and Don Friedewald and Nic Pagano (black Labs). Mr. Friedewald was clearly a dog in a previous life. The cast was completed by Samantha Ernst.

At Ms. Seidman's invitation, the A.S.P.C.A. showed dogs and cats in its adoption van parked outside the theater. There, the shy prances of a poodle named Matilda and the sweetly expectant eyes of Humphrey, a life-

buffeted little Shih Tzu, made Ms. Seidman's well-observed canines seem even truer. The sadder side of dogs' lives was captured in the Red Zone section, a group dance for a pack of wild dogs engaged in gang warfare worthy of West Side Story, and in the harrowingly beautiful Ancestors. In that duet the guest artists, Raphael Boumaila and Dagmar Spain, were wolves, feral creatures in love, but their howls and the night darkness evoked the terror of abandoned pets.

Karen Young's savvy dog costumes helped make WeDOGS an imaginative, blessedly uncute, dance experience.

[Illustration]PHOTO: Members of Mary Seidman and Dancers in WeDOGS. (PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDREA MOHIN/THE NEW YORK TIMES)