Review: 'Innovative Works' delivers
STEVEN BROWN

The first word in the title "Innovative Works" doesn't apply to everything in this year's version of N.C. Dance Theatre's annual showcase, which opened Thursday. But it does suit Uri Sands' "The Neighbors" -- if only because Sands reveals his story through hints and surprises rather than laying it out obviously.

"The Neighbors" unfolds to a gritty series of Tom Waits songs. It opens with three women who keep their backs to us. They're stooped. They clutch at themselves in a slow, repeated ritual. What's oppressing them?

Next scene: Two of them break into a sort of girlish go-go dance in front of a sofa we see from behind. Then they step toward us as light glares onto them. Their faces freeze into looks of wide-eyed horror as each covers her crotch with one hand. Why?

Suddenly a man appears. Judging by the fidgeting, splayed fingers of his right hand, something is haunting him. That go-go routine may have taken place in his mind. If the two dancers he imagined flirting with him are his daughters, that could be everyone's problem. Another problem: His duo with the other woman -- his wife? -- is laced with roughness toward her.

The tension builds from there. If Sands laid out abuse or dysfunction plainly, the tale could be melodramatic. But his oblique strokes yield mystery and intensity instead.

As the father, David Ingram, conveyed nearly as much distress Thursday through that tormented right hand as he does by hurling himself through his climactic solo, where Sands' choreography yanks him up, down and across the stage. Kara Wilkes portrayed a mother who has flashes of energy but never musters enough of it to rebel. Seia Rassenti and Anna Gerberich, the daughters, turned on a dime from the initial whimsy of that go-go dance to the lamentation that ensued.

Three works were essentially love scenes -- ardent, at their best, but not especially innovative. Sasha Janes was the romancer in all three, including one he choreographed himself based on a Handel aria. He and Rebecca Carmazzi all but melted into each other through its lifts and intertwinings.

Dwight Rhoden's "Ave Maria," using another Baroque aria, gave the passion just the slightest tinge of religion through a fleeting praying-hands gesture for the woman, whom Traci Gilchrest portrayed sleekly. In Mark Diamond's "Endless Now," Janes and Alessandra Ball were afflicted by a dark-garbed nemesis played by Joseph Watson, who manhandled them but set them free to keep adoring.

Randolph Ward and Addul Manzano vied exuberantly in the contests of Rhoden's "Choke." And in Nacho Duato's rainforest tribute "Na Floresta," a reprise from last season, 10 dancers again released the power in Duato's scenes of group ritual and individual striving.

N.C. DANCE THEATRE

The troupe performs its annual "Innovative Works" program.

WHEN: 8 p.m. today, Saturday and Nov. 9 and 10; 7:30 p.m. Nov. 8.

WHERE: Booth Playhouse, Blumenthal Performing Arts Center, 130 N. Tryon St.

TICKETS: $27-$69.

DETAILS: 704-372-1000; www.ncdance.org