TV Reviews : Dunn’s ‘Myth of Modern Dance’ on Channel 28

Pop paleontology invades the performing arts when veteran dancer/choreographer Douglas Dunn teams up with video director Charles Atlas for an episode of the “Alive From Off Center” series titled “The Myth of Modern Dance,” tonight at 11 on KCET Channel 28.

Beginning with Dunn’s emergence from a chocolaty protoplasmic ooze, and ending with his astral hula 30 minutes later, this playful, inventive collaboration addresses the debate about pattern in human evolution, using dance as example. Although the writings of Niles Eldridge and Ian Tattersall are subjected to deliberate distortion (in more ways than one), Dunn and Atlas do seek to undermine the theory of gradual developmental change in favor of a more episodic concept of growth.

Or maybe not, since their vision remains so whimsically tongue-in-cheek that they can have it both ways. No matter, the greatest pleasures in “Myth” come from watching Dunn evoke various styles of dancing while Atlas superimposes him on increasingly elaborate video landscapes.

In pageboy wig and veils, Dunn capers among giant flowers across a humanoid mountain--and soon is dodging spatters of pink paint on a mammoth canvas or racing across reams of sheet music.

Best of all, perhaps: Dunn dancing on fluffy clouds to “Nessun dorma” from Puccini’s “Turandot” (the Pavarotti recording) while helicopters and other aircraft zoom by. The imagery and accompaniment convey the luminous sweetness of a happy dream, but the dancing is grounded in enormous skill and surety. “The Myth of Modern Dance” evolved from a solo stage performance and, happily, for all its video fireworks, its central experience remains the sight of one man dancing up a storm.