In the centerpiece of the current tour of Mikhail Baryshnikov's White Oak
Dance Project, a thick sheet of bubble wrap is spread out over the huge
expanse of the Zellerbach Hall stage.  Throughout the piece, the dancers
keep popping the bubbles by stepping on them.

That's pretty much the best part of Sarah Michelson's 2002 "The Experts,"
a lame, dreary half-hour-long work, with all the weirdness of a Mark
Morris work without any of Morris' warmth, passion, brilliance and superb
effectiveness.  Without ANY of that.  Morris choreographs; Michelson makes
dancers convulse, stand around, gallop...  and pop bubbles.  (Morris comes
to mind also because he is co-founder of White Oak and it's becoming clear
why he hasn't participated in the company's work lately.)

And there is one of the greatest dancers of our age, using the company as
a kind of public gym, to keep in shape.  It' not easy or pleasant to diss
Baryshnikov - looking and moving great at 54 - but White Oak, which I never
really cared for, is now definitely on the wrong track.

"The Experts" is truly awful.  Through it all, a race car zooms by,
projected on a screen, without stop. Baryshnikov, wearing a floor-length
chiffon skirt, his wrists bound, stands still front and center (when not
convulsing), sighing loudly.  There is no story, there is no dance.  Mike
Iveson's electronic score gives the genre a bad name.  For any fan of
William Forsythe's Frankfurt "house composer," the marvelous Thom Willems,
this is hard to take.  The ever-enthusiastic Zellerbach audience applauded
politely, which means disapproval.

Other pieces on the program were better, but no much to write home about.
Lucinda Childs (more interesting and promising a quarter century ago) set
her 2001 "Largo" to Corelli's Concerto Grosso Op. 6.  It is a solo work
for Baryshnikov.  "Largo" and Erick Hawkins's 1961 "Early Floating" (to
Lucia Dlugoszewski's mediocre "Five Curtains of Timbre") have something
in common across four decades: they consist of individual, unconnected
movements.  Both are a series of poses, rather like individual photographs,
not a film. . . or dance.

Childs' new "Chacony," a fine work to music by Britten, completed the
full suite of Baryshnikov's participation, even if it's only in the final
minutes - he danced in every piece on the program, take that kiddies!

Janos Gereben/SF
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