A hard act to follow, for sure, but Corchero, Mao and Steinberg were more than capable, adding to the glories of the evening. Also attired at this point in variations of black-and-white work wear, the area then seemed to resemble an office space, with Keiden Oguri’s fine lighting scheme—here bright spots—showcasing the trio in, well, deep thought. 

With the tableau akin to a WeWork space, it should have been dubbed WeDance, as this particular set of personnel wove in and out of each other, occasionally coming together to resemble a multi-headed hydra—or perhaps—a “Punch and Judy” plus one vignette, their arms akimbo. Steinberg and Corchero fiercely bobbed up and down, slight groans emanating from their mouths, as Shaw, meanwhile wailed on his sax, this wash of sounds hanging in the air like so many ripe figs. 

With the lights lowered, and the walls painted black, Mao, garbed in all-black, made a simple outline of a door on the back wall with white paint. A spectacular backdrop for a Steinberg solo, it reminded this reviewer of the term outre noir (beyond black), an idiom coined by French painter Pierre Soulages (he died in 2022 at 102), to describe his own über-ebony works.

In front of this door that was incapable of opening, Steinberg, at first, rocked slowly, a melancholy look on her face, the music now elegiac, as she wrapped one arm around her head before turning her back to the audience. Slowly slithering downwards, she resembled nothing less than a Greek goddess, albeit one garbed in Vionnet-like attire. 

Was she trapped in nothingness, a void, struggling to free herself from a world reduced to a lone cell door, a cage? Whatever, wherever, or whoever she was, Steinberg was not afraid to embody the surrounding darkness, her contorted body coming to rest on her back, knees bent.