Stories, music, dance, graphic design. All have their place in “Never Twenty One.” The men have words printed in white on their dark skin, an image reminiscent of Bill T. Jones’ wearing of Keith Haring’s designs on his own skin in the 1980’s. Here, the designs contain meaning: “indigenous,” “at peace,” “pasinho.” The work begins with lights dancing in the dark, their patterns suggesting both searchlights and fireworks. Their luminous patterns are sometimes beautiful, sometimes alarming. Then we hear voices, speaking in English: that of a mortician who prepares the bodies of shooting victims for burial; a mother who has lost her son, and whose “heart hurts just thinking about it,” twenty-five years later. 

At first we see the dancers in parts: just the feet, just the torso. Finally, when the entire body is illuminated, the real dancing begins. Often, the dancers’ movements—the fast footwork of pasinho, mesmerizing arm patterns—appear unrelated to what is being said. But there are moments in which the stories and movement collide. A hand on the heart, arms behind the head, collapsing bodies. And more and more, as the piece goes along, a violence within the movement itself—shuddering, moving jerkily, slicing—and then, between the men. They grapple with each other, and punch, or gang up, two against one. 

The sound-score alternates between words to music, in English, French, Portuguese. To Kanye West’s “Hands On,” about being stopped by the police after he “made a left when I should’ve made a right,” the men spin and slash at the air, until one falls and twitches on the ground, and then lies still. To another musical passage, Aston Bonaparte moves mesmerizingly, with a kind of inner vibration that spreads to his arms, and even to his long hair, lashing the air. His solo is the dance highlight of “Never Twenty One.”