Unfortunately, the dance itself was not so stellar. There was not much birth or carnage, to my mind, but lots of regurgitation of the same old contemporary dance tropes. Shall I list them again? There was dark lighting, by Devin Cameron, and an electronic score by James Newberry that went from droning to club tracks and turned into rosy chords in the finale. The dance mostly followed the music’s meter precisely: if it was pulsing, they pulsed with it, if it was droning, they slo-mo slinked. No counterpoint was birthed here, no chaotic musical carnage. The uncredited costumes consisted of plain black separates, with the dudes all topless. The steps consisted of huddles, pulsing piles, pietas, squats with fast arms, cheerleader lifts, slides, amoebas, group hugs, nuzzling, and people diving in and out of a circular spotlight.  

The backdrop was more compelling, with a video of astral projections by klsr and reinfected.me in constant, roller coaster motion. Sometimes the footage clarified and elevated the dance, as when swirling galaxies on the screen matched up with a tornado-like cluster of dancers. One person would get flung out, much like the arms of a celestial spiral above. I could imagine the link between massive, interplanetary gravitational forces and those attracting and repelling at the atomic level. 

Phelan further linked these physical properties of alliance and rejection to base instinct as well, a wonderful idea. Much of the dance seemed to depict a pack of wolves in which a few dogs tried to assert their dominance and become the alpha. Sniffing was big. And a passage in which Paul Zivkovich walked Phelan like a dog after she mounted him hinted at darker themes of domination and subordination, with an element of “Waiting for Godot” absurdity thrown in too. At one point, there appeared to be a human (or primate?) sacrifice.