“Revolver,” to a trippy guitar score by Ava Mendoza, introduces the stuttering, restless movement that persists throughout the program. Westwater arrives first, in royal blue pants and a matching shirt that sports an extra, dangling sleeve. (Claire Fleury designed the costumes, collages of sheer and opaque fabrics.) Establishing the theme of veering from vertical, Westwater leans woozily back, her torso swaying above firmly planted feet.
When Gries joins her, the two seem unified, even when physically distant, in their navigation of agitated, weighted steps, their feet like magnets drawn to the floor. As the score vacillates between rhythmic, melodic passages and warped dissonance, they look at times like they’re trying to worm their way out of their bodies. Madeline Best’s beautiful lighting, shifting from a neutral glow to sky blue behind the backdrop, suggests a world beyond this enclosed one.
In keeping with its title, “Choreomaniacs,” which seems to pick up where “Revolver” leaves off, plumbs wilder depths. Here Westwater is joined by four other dancers — Alex Romania, Rakia Seaborn, Stacy Lynn Smith and Nattie Trogdon — each resolutely individual but moving from a shared impulse. After the effortful opening work, freer moments come as welcome surprises, like the flinging kick of a leg or a vertiginous roll to the floor. The immersive music, by Mendoza and Mike Baggetta, feels like an extension of what came before, with added environmental noises. (When a siren sounds, it could be coming from the speakers or the street.)
In Westwater’s pursuit of misalignment, flashes of its opposite — rough alignments — prove satisfying by contrast, a break from the sameness of form. These works deliver a lot of one thing, with variation perhaps more perceptible to the performers than the audience. But every so often, out of amorphousness, something like unison emerges: a repeating phrase of lifted knees and plopped-down feet, or two people finding stillness at the same time. A different kind of harmony emerges at the end, as the dancers, all but Westwater, entangle in soft, heavy embraces. They continue to sway and falter, but there’s no question they will hold each other up.
“Revolver” and “Choreomaniacs”
Through April 29 at the Chocolate Factory Theater, Queens; chocolatefactorytheater.org
