FORT WORTH – Adam and Eve and God is a duet of sorts. God is represented in the new dance piece but not in the form of a dancer. Instead, the percussive squeals of avant-garde composer George Crumb's music stand in for the creator.
Texas Dance Theatre's Josie Baldree and Dan Westfield performed Adam and Eve and God on Friday as the company closed its first season.
Another creator, New York choreographer Mark Panzarino, made the piece for Texas Dance Theatre, which closed its first season Friday with the premiere and five other works at Scott Theatre.
In keeping with the Fort Worth company's orientation toward ballet, Panzarino, a former Miami City Ballet dancer, employs classical movement. But there's also a fresh, modern sensibility in the way he interprets the biblical story of original man and woman.
Adam and Eve and God opened at Friday afternoon's preview on a dark stage except for the red-lit edge of a curtain in one corner. As Crumb's harsh soundscape began to disturb the atmosphere like a warning from the almighty, a bar holding a loosely hung black curtain rose to reveal Josie Baldree and Dan Westfield bent forward.
The music's bowed screeches came and went as the pair danced together in relative innocence, Westfield clenching Baldree from behind and carrying her horizontally across his shoulders.
For the second section, balloons and balled-up paper covered the stage. Baldree started out lying at one end with her back arched, then scooted through the effluvia to get to Westfield on the other side. Westfield, as if in a panic, rapidly rubbed his head and body, pounded the ground and beat his chest.
Had Adam and Eve fallen, only to pay the price? Costumed in flesh-covered body suits, Baldree and Westfield dressed themselves in black clothing, covering their no-longer-innocent bodies. A curtain at the back of the performance space then rose to reveal a bank of candy-colored footlights. The new world might be tainted, but at least it has more shades.
Other standouts on the program included artistic director Wil McKnight's Webern Variations, particularly the lovely geometric patterns formed by the dancers at the end, and guest choreographer Elizabeth Gillaspy's Duet for Hollis Hock. Hock conveyed a contemplative consciousness. You could see that she wasn't just moving; she was thinking.
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