Dance Reviews : Three Choreographers Perform at Highways

Anti-war themes are familiar territory in performance art and dance. So how is it that Jeff McMahon’s solo, “Scatter”--part of a group program seen Friday night at Highways--is so fresh and vivid? Mastery of style, tone and technique are the crucial factors.

Looking almost bodiless under a khaki jumpsuit, the wiry dancer is by turns a stiff-legged soldier, a twitching rag-doll victim, a carefree boy next door, a lubricious entertainer, a sexless sprite skipping on tiptoe.

Begining with “When Johnnie Comes Marching Home,” McMahon weaves snatches of song (martial, devotional, pop) and narrative (mocking, dreamy, confessional) into a grimly witty indictment of attitudes behind the Gulf War.

At one point, McMahon suddenly turns to stare at his waving hand--his hands are his most casually eloquent tools--and slaps it, and collapses into a sort of delicate, stumbling dizziness, careening on the sides of his feet. It’s an image of patriotism gone awry, and it is a brilliant stroke.

Work by Kai Ganado and Susan Rose, on the other hand, look dated and even unintentionally campy. Ganado’s “Snakeskin” involves two sinuously slouching, pouting guys in a monotonous series of groggy encounters, to the chanting, drumming music of Lisbeth Woodies.

In one section of “Underthings,” Rose attempts a portrait of neurotic obsession (jiggling legs, roaming arms, scrabbling fingers), a path already well worn by Tandy Beal and others. A manic interlude of zooming around in supermarket carts is undercut by the absence of any identifiable mood or idea. Are the two women hostile, bonkers or just dancers playing with props?