More variations. After moving in unison, the three figures begin to vary their rhythms, so that the phrases become a counterpoint of two-beat phrases against three-beat phrases, or three beats against one. Then they accentuate different beats. They vary the patterns of the arms, creating different shapes. One crouches, becoming a gnome-like figure. Another stands still, with arms out like an angel of resurrection by the eighteenth-century English poet-painter-printmaker William Blake. Another stands still with one arm extended upward—now he becomes the Grim Reaper.  At other moments the three dancers resemble birds, squid, water, and, yes, moths, like the silk moth called the bombyx mori, which the piece is named.

The lights dim, so that the figures become even more abstracted—black stains against a gray backdrop. They hop and run. For a moment I’m reminded of the moving shapes created by the Swiss surrealist theater group Mummenschanz. Though this dance seems deeply serious, almost ceremonial, the memory introduces a touch of absurdity to the proceedings. And then, as in a grand finale in a fireworks display, the three launch into a final serpentine dance, their black cowls moving faster and faster, the sound becoming louder and louder, until it seems their arms might unscrew themselves from their bodies and fly away.

At the moment when it seems this cannot go on for a minute longer, it ends. There is just enough variety to sustain interest for an hour. But “Bombyx Mori” is more like a study for a piece than the piece itself. With her “Serpentine Dances,” Fuller was breaking new ground. We can be grateful to Maciejewska for giving modern audiences a taste of her magic, but still, it seems to me, there should be more.