Sarah Michelson.(Dance review)

Sarah Michelson Next Wave Festival Bam Harvey Theater, Brooklyn, NY October 18-21, 2006

The longtime darling of downtown spaces, British-born choreographer Sarah Michelson is said to have spent upwards of $150,000 on her recent DOGS, commissioned by the Next Wave Festival. Every dime of that was visible on the usually derelict stage of this old picture palace, transformed with pale drapery and a Masonite floor covered with a hand-painted pattern of intersecting circles that extended onto the apron. Elaborate lighting equipment surrounded the stage and even poked up from the middle of the orchestra section; at various times, projections of bright-eyed cats and zebras appeared on the stage's walls.

Spiky nosegays of lighting fixtures sprouted from the floor, creating a futuristic garden where barefooted Parker Lutz, in a beige unitard with puffy sleeves, performed brief balletic variations to music by Mike Iveson, Bert Janusch, and, most startlingly, given Michelson's experimental pedigree, Leo Delibes (large chunks of the score for Sylvia). A black curtain descended over and over, at ...