Nothing New Under Sun: What Goes Up Comes Down

The dancers in Icarus invariably served with distinction, even when comporting themselves like weird, humble little critters only an entomologist could love. A brief suite of dances by Elyssa Dole, Jonette Ford, and Jeffrey Freeze, directed by Nina Hein, Icarus reference the classical myth about crafting wings, taking flight, and falling. Squint and you could probably make its pieces fit together. But the pacing between segments was slack, an often inexplicable soundscape taxed one's nerves, and video images, initially interesting, grew as murky as badly mixed watercolors. Movement design, though competent, lacked that certain something that makes a work of art matter deeply. The "White" duet—created and danced by beautiful, haunted-looking Dole and Ford—at least provided textured, unsettling drama to sink one's teeth into. Lengths of white cloth enclosed the women's limbs, stretching like taffy and binding them together for eternity.