Alchemists
Motion Lab creates new dance-music fusions.

By Rita Felciano

CHOREOGRAPHER-DANCER Kathleen Hermesdorf and musician-composer (and sometime dancer) Albert Mathias call their ensemble Motion Lab. While this moniker suggests a scientific facility devoted to automobiles, because the duo started out as Sister Hermes Dance Machine, the newer name is probably an improvement. But whatever tag Hermesdorf and Mathias want to hang on their collaborations is fine with me; these artists are coming up with some of the Bay Area's most intriguing answers to the old conundrum about the interaction of music and dance. Their latest program, "As Above, So Below," collects two ensemble works and three solos into an evening of wit and pulsating energy. It's performed by artists who know how to push and let go (and most important, the difference between the two).

Traditionally in the West, music has been "supportive" of dance, and the result has been some ballets that sport remarkably lousy scores. This isn't the case in India or Africa, where music and dance are so intricately intertwined that one cannot exist without the other. Motion Lab strives for a similar kind of mutual give and take. Hermesdorf and Mathias don't always succeed, but when they do, even the air surrounding the performers seems to dance.

Of the three world premieres, the finale, The Swooning Room, was the standout, despite the fact that the ending was somewhat flat. Mathias's score effectively mixed live singing and drumming with recordings so that the dance and music fed off one another. Hermesdorf sent her seven female dancers (Mair Culbreth, Shona Curley, Heidi Jones Eggert, Jessica Ingersoll-Cope, Monique Jenkinson, Jessica Thomas, and Michelle Winchell) rushing from the wings only to have them sucked away by a contrary energy from the other side. Movement gave way to moments of stasis, and vice versa: a space-defining cartwheel concluded in total stillness; a back flip reanimated two resting dancers. Austin Forbord's live video feed – from a stationary camera in the wings – expanded the piece's lack of equilibrium into another realm.

Enchanté was a commission for the new rep group Company Mécanique. Mathias added vocals to old Buena Vista Social Club tracks with a wonderful sense of abandon, and just as the music surged into tangible presence, he would allow it to withdraw again. Mécanique's sextet (Alisa Michelle, Patric Cashman, Phil Halbert, Jenna Marshall, Anne-Lise Reusswig, and Winchell) explored Hermesdorf's version of couple dancing: yes, there were traditional elements – hand kisses, taps on the shoulder, and tensions about who leads whom – but they were framed by unconventional, unpredictable gestures. Choreographically, the piece relied on basic movement relationships for each fluidly changing couple. These units overlapped, returned in different locations, and were modified over time.

Of the evening's three solos, the oldest one, 1999's Solo for Supergirl, still worked best. If you have ever thought Sheila Chandra's superlative vocalizations sound a little absurd, you have found an ally in the hilarious Hermesdorf. Dressed in a plaid miniskirt, the exasperated dancer allowed herself to be pulled, chased, and suffocated by Chandra's virtuosity. Her timing was immaculate.

The new Wanderlust, utilizing a walking stick, needed more focus. Hermesdorf's talent for comedy got another workout – her hitchhiking thumbs had a will of their own – but the piece strayed further than it probably intended. Prop deployment is not one of Hermesdorf's strongest skills, though as a dancer she has few equals: every movement phrase, no matter how idiosyncratic, looked integrated. In contrast, Mathias's strongest dancing – in the earnest I'm Still (True Confessions of a Dance Devotee) – was with his fingers on a drum. 'As Above, So Below' runs through Sun/26. Thurs.-Sun., 8 p.m., ODC Theater, 3153 17th St. S.F. $18. (415) 863-9834.