About Intimacy, Territory and Sometimes Great Joy

At the start of “Are you Happy to See Me,” Dongkyu Kim, one of the eight charming dancers, all male, who make up the LDP/Laboratory Dance Project, lay face down in a square of light, while a distorted and circuslike sounding recording of “Je Ne Regrette Rien” played. This South Korean company, only 10 years old, made a splash in this Jacob’s Pillow debut with its mashup of modern dance, break dance and martial arts. In the simple set for “Are you Happy,” the first of three pieces that all differed widely yet had much in common, a large rectangle of ripped metal mesh was suspended at an angle from the ceiling. Sometimes the shape was mirrored by squares of light on the floor. If there was a plot or clear theme to the piece, it wasn’t evident, though there were many movement motifs that recurred: sharp hand movements, periods of walking, sudden falls, moments that seemed to indicate missed connections. Sections of music started and stopped abruptly, separated by periods of silence. Moments of tenderness, caresses and gentle lifts, contrasted with more aggressive sparring and animalistic gyrations. The six dancers all wore black shirts and long, blue batik skirts, and the score moved from soft night sounds to harsher mechanical rasps. At the end, Dongkyu Kim was again alone on stage, looking bereft and baffled, as if to wonder what the various sections amounted to. All the dancers were impressive — powerful and controlled — but Sung Hoon Kim, tall and elegant, stood out. He had a sinuous power that drew the attention whenever he was on stage. In “Modern Feeling,” a man (Jinyook Ryu) dozed in an armchair, perhaps in a waiting room. Insoo Lee (also the choreographer of the piece) entered, looked around and sat in a second chair, staring intently at the sleeping man. Invading Ryu’s space, Lee put his hand on the other man’s leg, and the leg began quivering spasmodically until the spasm spread to Lee’s body. An odd and amusing dance of growing intimacy, irritation and territorial battles followed. Again, musical sections were separated by silence; again the relationships and characters were abstract and changeable — in one moment Ryu seemed to be having a drug-fueled euphoria or religious epiphany, and the next he was challenging to Lee to a tae kwon do duel. The two men lifted, clasped, threw and caught, and supported each other in an intimate and intricate pas de deux — sometimes embracing, sometimes grappling, but rarely separating for long. Whether they were strangers in a waiting room or brothers or romantic rivals, it didn’t matter. Their teasing, challenging connection was a pleasure to watch. The third piece was billed as the company’s signature. In “No Comment,” all eight dancers had the chance to let loose with the most explosive dancing of the night. It started mysteriously, in near darkness. A rhythmic slapping accompanied the sight of a man writhing on the floor, rising up and falling down. Eventually the lights came up enough to see that another man was slapping his chest in some kind of demented ritual, which he continued long past the time it became uncomfortable to watch. Every dancer, at one time or another, had their own repetitive tic: wiping a face, rubbing a head.The slap-slap rhythm carried through the piece, becoming a foot stomp during an Indian-sounding section of the music (composed by Goran Bregovic’ and Transglobal underground). For the last ten minutes, the dancers repeated variations on one simple sequence of a chest slapping and a quick kick, the rhythm gathering and building in momentum until a final joyful moment of show-offy flips and aerials which gave each dancer a chance to show his stuff. It felt like a bunch of kids in the Times Square Subway station busking for quarters and applause, and in the latter, at least, they were richly rewarded. For information about events at Jacob’s Pillow in Becket, MA, call 413-243-0745; go to www.jacobspillow.org, or check the calendar listing in Compass.