Space travel
Exploring CellGround, by Lizz Roman and Dancers.
By Rita Felciano

SITE-SPECIFIC choreography proceeds with its own challenges and rewards, questioning assumptions of space, continuity, texture, perspective, and point of view. And when dancers move beyond a flat floor, they also encounter additional issues regarding technique, virtuosity, safety, and expressiveness. Some choreographers – including Amelia Randolph, Jo Kreiter, and Joanna Haigood – often use equipment to shape and create their own performance arena. In CellGround, Lizz Roman and Dancers take on the trusses, balconies, platforms, and a staircase or two in CELLspace's theater. The result is a lovely hour of music and dance in which beauty is its own reward.

Roman chose her collaborators wisely. Her dancers (Amanda Christiansen, Mair Culbreth, Sean Dorsey, Emily Leap, Courtney Moreno, Noel Plemmons, Sonya Smith, James Soria-Matthews, Mark Stuver, and Evan Saunders) move with the grounded physicality and fluid expressiveness that amplify the give-and-take inherent in contact improv. Much of the choreography is based on partner dancing and call-and-response patterns, probably worked out by the individual dancers themselves – though Roman seems to have set basic parameters, such as timing and the use of repetitions and unisons. At times, CellGround resembles an orchestra, with sections taking turns emerging and receding only to come together in a grand tutti.

CellGround is perhaps most whimsically attractive in the way it uses the space to both reveal and conceal the dancers. Since the audience is encouraged to walk around, perspectives constantly change: sometimes you can't see a dancer, so you just have to accept a shadow on the wall for what it is. Clad (by costumer Leigh Anne Martin) in reds and browns – lending a warmth that stands out against the building's industrial gray – limbs shoot out between beams, and bodies pop up from balconies or curl up into dark recesses.

The piece opens with the dancers far apart. Soria-Matthews and Smith, precariously hanging onto narrow supports, cantilever out from a wall 20 feet up. Moreno and Culbreth, looking like Victorian ornaments in the angle of a steel beam, take on the roof supports. Dorsey, Christiansen, and Plemmons fold and roll themselves on a platform, partially hidden by the theater's trusses. When the dancers coalesce on the second floor, the pace picks up, and the unexpected takes over: a couple rolling off a railing might lead into four performers shooting up like corks from a champagne bottle; a tango-like encounter melts away and a second later reappears with new partners. Eventually a leisurely conga line works its way back into the ground-floor lobby, highlighting each dancer's individuality along the way.

To build toward the finale, Roman designed duets for a more intimate, red-lit part of the theater that contains a ramp, a few steps, and boxlike structures. At first paired off for one-on-one encounters, the dancers come together one more time, lolling, stretching, and curling on window panes projected onto the floor. This initial agitation gradually gives way to calm and a lovely sense of intimacy.

CellGround would not be even half as successful were it not for Roman's other key collaborators. Designer Clyde Sheets's nuanced and intricate lighting schemes make the dancing shadows possible – and he's also an excellent DJ, scratching a few text-based tracks to punctuate the mood music and energizing rock. Sheets performs with marvelous composer-cellist Alex Kelly, who plays both an electric and an acoustic cello, pushing ahead the sound score even as he responds to the dancers' needs. Rich in skill and imagination, these musicians are a pleasure to listen to.

'CellGround' continues Thurs/24-Sat/26, 8 p.m., CELLspace, 2050 Bryant, S.F. $20. (415) 269-1283.