‘Before Forever’: A Bracing Message for Muscovites : Dance: Philadelphia’s Danceteller takes a show to Moscow to educate Russians about the realities of AIDS.

MOSCOW — As the poignant voices of Russians who have HIV resonated over the sound system, an American dance troupe turned the dusty stage into a hospital floor, where one patient writhed in agony and another waltzed with the stand holding his intravenous feeding bag.

The ensemble, Philadelphia-based Danceteller, had brought its medley of dance, mime and monologue to Moscow in hopes of educating Russians about the realities of living with AIDS.

But the audience’s reaction suggested that Muscovites may not be ready for this kind of education.

In a country where homosexuality is still technically against the law, where terminal illnesses are usually kept secret from patients and where acquired immune deficiency syndrome is rarely discussed, Danceteller’s performance seemed on the far side of avant-garde.

Almost two-thirds of the 250 who turned out Wednesday night for the first Moscow performance of “Before Forever,” written by Los Angeles native Robert Barnett, left at intermission.

Snickering as the dancers swayed and clung to one another, some spectators, accustomed to classical ballet, seemed just as taken aback by the troupe’s modern dance techniques as by its subject matter.

“The dancers looked like farmers who had been sitting on their tractors for too long and were trying to stretch out,” said Valeri Togolokov, 29, who left after the first act.

His friend, 25-year-old Anatoli Mikhailov, said they had bought tickets to the performance “because we thought it might be informative--but the show explained nothing.”

Local activists welcomed “Before Forever” as a key to jump-starting AIDS education here, which has been stymied by a lack of public concern and by recalcitrant bureaucrats who censor safe-sex pamphlets as pornographic.

Officially, only 750 people in the former Soviet Union are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS, but gay rights leaders say the true number of cases could top 7,000.

“In Russia, our idea of helping AIDS patients is holding a telethon in which some stars come out and sing pretty songs,” said Sergei Shevtsov, 32, a Russian performer who joined the Danceteller troupe for its tour of four Russian cities and Vilnius, Lithuania.

“Telethons may earn some money for a charity, but no one gains any understanding of the disease,” Shevtsov added. “Our show educates people.”

To adapt his script to Russian audiences, playwright Barnett interviewed 10 Muscovites, including a woman who had adopted an HIV-positive baby, a doctor who treats AIDS cases and several young patients. In addition to using their anecdotes in skits, Barnett mixed the actual voices of AIDS patients into the soundtrack.

One HIV-positive man in his early 20s told Barnett bitterly, “I don’t think (Russian President Boris N.) Yeltsin knows how to spell AIDS. The higher you get (in the government), the worse the ignorance is.”

Another recounted his efforts to arrange a memorial service for a friend who had died of AIDS. A clergyman in his church recoiled at the idea, sputtering that “AIDS is a dirty disease, and people with AIDS are dirty,” Barnett recalled.

Despite their anger, “the patients seemed enlivened and warmed when they realized how important their words would be in educating other people,” said dancer John Blanchard, 33, who listened to tapes of the interviews.

Yet most of the Russians who watched “Before Forever” said they were already sympathetic toward AIDS patients and knowledgeable about the disease. Thus, the work’s none-too-subtle calls for compassion struck some as overly didactic.

“It was closer to propaganda than art,” said 22-year-old theater student Dmitry Chernyakov.

Others complained that the straightforward voice-overs that accompanied the dance--such as the taped voice of a woman saying, “Never lose hope” that ended the performance--did not mesh well with the symbolism of dance.

“If they want to tell people about AIDS, they should speak simply, explain the facts and let us know what to do about it,” said Natasha Struchkova, 24. “As it was, it wasn’t art and it wasn’t straight talk, so overall it wasn’t very successful.”

But those who stayed through the second act, featuring a tragi-comic skit about a construction worker dragged off for HIV testing, said the 90-minute performance was worth seeing.

“I came here with my two children, and I think they learned something from the performance,” said accountant Claudia Publichenka, 46. Smiling at her junior-high-age daughters, she added, “But I think I’ll need to do a bit of explaining on the way home.”