An Exercise in Life, Death by Greenberg

The irony built into work by the New York-based company Dance by Neil Greenberg, which opened at Highways Wednesday night, was that it had the sturdy, task-oriented look of men’s gymnastic floor exercise--an emphasis on clear shapes, serviceable extensions and concentrated pauses, unfolding most often in silence--but the dances were about AIDS, death and loss. Inevitably, something got said about life moving on, with all its contradictions.

The style of this company, making its local debut, was established first by Greenberg’s brief solo from his larger work, “Not-About-AIDS Dance” (1994), then in “The Disco Project” (1995), in which he was joined by his four dancers--Christopher Batenhorst, Jennifer Wright Cook, Justine Lynch and Paige Martin.

Dressed in dark pink satin shorts and tank tops, they performed wide swings of the arms and legs, and controlled kicks, hops and little phrases that came to rest frequently and deliberately, as if thoughts were always arresting movement.

Slide projections above the dancers’ heads consisted of short sentences that chronicled events in company life and Greenberg’s own, again mixing the task-oriented (comings and goings of dancers, scheduling details) with the earth-shattering (the deaths of lovers and colleagues).

Frequent blackouts and shifts in lighting (by Michael Stiller) sometimes threw the dancers into shadows and silhouettes, adding to the feeling that time was passing. Fragments of disco music occasionally shattered the silence, and then movement became more rhythmic and urgent. Show-dance poses slipped out from time to time and a recurrent side-to-side club-type shuffle mimicked disco fever in a deadpan way.

Since Greenberg’s text is autobiographical, it’s not surprising that the company is dominated by his presence. The choreographer’s idiosyncrasies and performance style are often more clearly read than those of his dancers. Greenberg’s penetrating stare was always sharply stunned and wounded, where the faces of other dancers were often bland or dazed.

Perhaps most affecting was a solo by Greenberg near the end, in which he crossed organized disco-energy with the near-flailing of despair. His printed text had told us of his losses, of his own HIV-positive status and so-far asymptomatic state, so we could imagine the anguish and ecstasy from which he creates. The lyric accompanying that solo--pounded out to a lively disco beat--was, tellingly, “Never can say goodbye.”

* Dance by Neil Greenberg, Highways, 1651 18th St., Santa Monica, tonight, Saturday and Sunday, 8:30 p.m. $15. (213) 660-8587.