Having been choreographic artists-in-residence with LADP since 2020, the duo made the work on a sextet of that troupe’s movement gods and goddesses. Both mind and body-boggling, the dancers brought heat to the opus that, according to the program notes, “contains elements, themes and moments danced or dreamed in the companion pieces, “Lost Mountain” and “Caldera.”” (The former premiered at La MaMa in 2019 with 10 artists, the latter was created on Corpus of the Royal Danish Ballet with five dancers, also in 2019.)

But back to the present: Playing out on a red-carpeted, Smith-designed set that could have been an arty loft or semi-classy brothel, replete with couch, upright piano, a long table and a ladder, the work began with Daphne Fernberger walking slowly on the balls of her feet and brandishing a bunch of long-twigged gladiolus. 

Set to a score by Yonatan Daskal—his original ambient/trance-like music was interspersed with tunes by Bach, including a Chaconne as performed by violinist Kier GoGwilt—singer Asaf Avidan, Tom Waits, and others, the piece ebbed and flowed rhythmically, the dancers taking their cues individually, in pairs and in an array of compelling groupings. 

Fernberger, sans fleurs but decked out in a rose-hued silk slip, then coupled with Lorin Brubaker in an achingly beautiful pas de deux, her back and side bends supremely supple, before their bodies began moving as one in a gorgeous, slo-mo, Wilsonesque mating dance. A noble partner —when he wasn’t deploying his own deep pliés—he carried her aloft, spinning his precious cargo with ease to the sounds of Bach’s “Actus Tragicus,” arranged by György Kurtág and performed by cellist Coleman Itzkoff.