The all-female Alma String Quartet gets a spotlight moment as it performs an overture (music by Alexander Balanescu and Boris Kovac) to “Vertigo.” When the stage lights come up on the work of choreographer Susana Pous, four dancers hold the strings of lanterns that float overhead like kites. (It’s an effect made with lighting fixtures safely secured to the boom.) The choreography’s whimsy matches this visual effect. As per the titular affliction, Daile Carrazana wobbles and sways off balance, caught by Aguilar and others. When the group carries a woman upside down, her legs peddle the empty air. A group of four lines up to twirl the petite Carrazana like the spoke of a wheel. After climbing a stairway made of men’s shoulders, Carrazana perches at the top. The lanterns sway as if they too are now dizzy. 

Aszure Barton’s “Indomitable Waltz” from 2016 is the only non-premiere of the evening, refreshed for this show with the addition of live music (Balanescu, Michael Nyman, and Nils Frahm)—again performed by the Alma String Quartet and López-Gavilán. The dancers’ solos and duets flow in and out of unison like conversations at a cocktail party. Dayron Dominguez is a human rubberband as he flexes and contorts his limbs to a tango inflected strain. When Esven Gonzalez steps to the foreground, his presence is fierce. He lays across the back of a crouched Carlos Daniel Valladares to take a barrel roll with legs in a wide V. After a duet, he leaves his partner alone onstage afflicted with a stiff-legged gait. At one point, where all the performers are moving independently, they spontaneously shift into focus for a phrase that moves in canon through the group as if they are one body—it’s a move that could very well symbolize the Malpaso collaborative spirit. This is Malpaso’s tenth season at the Joyce and it still feels like a miracle to be sitting in the audience watching Havana based artists.