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De Keersmaeker took a different approach from Hans van Manen's work to the same music. Instead of couples, we saw seven men and one woman, Eneka Bordato, identified through press kit inclusions. Originally created for De Keersmaeker's company Rosas, the piece is garbed in black trousers and jackets with white shirts. The jackets get shed mid- passage to expose white shirts with rumpled tails, for the energetic movement is heavy into thrusting falls and body rolls. Jumps are accomplished like airborne crouches or sideways with taut arms and fingers outspread. Occasionally one saw a bent arm culminating in a fist, a la up yours. The work starts with two men, provides a lengthy solo passage for the woman who then blends into the group of seven men. With Beethnoven's emphasis there is nothing half-hearted about launching falls, the body rolls, or the jumps. One Asian, I assume Yang Jiang, was particularly tidy and animated in execution. De Keersmaeker obviously felt Beethnoven's strength the perfect challenge; I am uncertain her vision paralleled Ludwig's transcendent force.

Forsythe's Step-Text, created in 1984 to J.S. Bach's opus for the unaccompanied violin, shares first cousin relationship to Artefact Suite, created the same year. Step Text is kinder; while the music is cut suddenly and the abruptness accented by blackouts, it is aurally more tolerable than the harshness of a fast falling scrim.

Artefact Suite employs an entire company; Step-Text uses only four dancers, alas not identified in program or announcement. Like the sole figure directing the corps in Artefact Suite, the dancers resort to semaphore language with their lower arms, and at dazzling pace.

A single male starts, then retreats behind the oblong white barrier backstage center. He is followed by another, then both dance together, partnering each other briefly before a woman in red arrives and makes her own semaphonre comments. Suddenly, a 6 feet 4 African-American, Corey Scott-Gilbert and recent Juilliard graduate, emerges from the barrier to partner the woman, who also is of African descent. Their pas de deux is brilliant; like most of the work it is marked by the shoves, pulls and leaning balances partnered by the first two men. One worries she is being manipulated, if compliant, but she stops abruptly at least twice and stalks off stage left. The three men dance and semaphore together, leaving the stage at various times; when the woman returns, she is partnered by all men in turn, but principally by Scott-Gilbert, whose lean height is never a deterrent to sheer brilliance. With his presence, and fast, clear, precise execution, the results were electrifying. It is Forsythe in a Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude mode, and a terrific program substitute. I've forgotten the finale, but remembered it stopped as abruptly as everything else; I bravoed loudly with the audience.
 

Maguy Marin seems to enjoy dancers at one remove via masks or costumes. Groosland, one such piece, was originally created for the Het National Ballet utilizing Bach's Brandenberg Concertos 2 and 3. She has stuffed dancers into uniform garments of denim blue with kerchiefs, hats, short skirts and suspenders holding shortened trousers, body shapes several inches broader than the performers' nimble bodies.

The dancers execute the formal patterns of European social ensemble dancers, adding an accent with an occasional tossed lower leg, grotesque size rendered amiable by whimsy and some innate nuances in the port de bras no amount of stuffing can obscure.

The dancers commence, women on one side, men on the other, images of the coy and the bashful, gradually warming, turning frisky. With that music it would be impossible otherwise. Think Breugel paintings of peasant gatherings, earthy, earnest, filled with intense enjoyment of the moment. A touching pas de deux ensues where the man and the woman gradually disrobe her; a shoe, then a sock flying off, down comes a shiny, forest green brassiere; the skirt is dismissed and maiden stands in panties studded with red hearts. This removed, the obese contours are fully revealed. Maiden suddenly turns coy, picks up the discarded garments and departs. The man stands, then shrugs.

The entire ensemble appears in their stuffed and painted nudity for the final movement; to the relentless bowing of Concerto 3, they simply fly with bonhomie, leaving the audience in the same mood.