'DANCE' remains fresh

Spoleto presented Lucinda Childs' "DANCE" at the Gaillard Auditorium, a work first performed 30 years ago and proved that the work has no expiration date and still resonates in today's world. The 55-minute dance in three sections included 11 dancers who dressed in white, constantly skimming across the stage to the hypnotic score of Philip Glass. The music at times overpowers the choreography and the film by Sol LeWitt, which is projected on a scrim in front of the dancers, creating the perfect and ghostly blend of past and present.

Mounds of makeup, jiving gymnastics, raucous rock tunes, comical costumes and lurid lighting do not necessarily make for good theater.

In the case of Die Roten Punkte, however, all these elements work together to make this show a resounding success because the most important element of all is exceptional: the performers.

The pulsing and repetitive score allows for the dancers to buoyantly skip, spin and jump through ever-shifting geometric pathways parallel to LeWitt's film. It adds dimension to the space and thus to the dance itself.

The movement, limited in its vertical carriage and arm positions over the petite allegro of the footwork, resembles something classical, but the looping of sound and shape creates something more abstract. As the dance unfolds trancelike, the dancers turn on their axes like spinning planets, at other times they could be cellular activity under a microscope. Most powerful is the second section where the image of Lucinda Childs stands larger-than-life with the look of an artist who is confident her work will not disappear. Dancer Caitlin Scranton mirrors the choreographer, weaving in and out of the footage in a brilliant light design by Beverly Emmons.

Some audience members streamed out in the middle of the performance, much like the first time the work was performed in 1979. Some reactions do not change, but what is clear is that Childs is still pushing the boundaries of what dance can be.