Quasi-interactive motion, pictures

A woozy muse inspires collaborations between choreographers and filmmakers -- at least was the dominant impression created by the relentlessly swooping, swirly, 14-part “Caught Between: Dancing for Camera and Live Audience” at the Ivar Theatre on Sunday.

Restless, roving hand-held cameras and discontinuous editing marred this second annual multimedia event, whether live dancers interacted with projected imagery (eight pieces) or all the dancing took place on screen (six pieces). All the vertiginous screen motion may have added a layer of visual energy to the dancers’ actions, but it too often proved indiscriminate: a presentational mannerism rather than a genuine creative statement.

The most satisfying pieces aimed for something stronger than picturesque, diversionary juxtapositions: a deep link between dancers and film or video imagery. For instance, Lisa Naugle and John Crawford’s “Looking Back” artfully explored memory or heritage, with Briana Bowie soloing on stage in an attempt to connect with a filmed duo (Patrizia Herminjard and Donald Laney) whose likenesses grew increasingly abstract and indistinct.

Memory also enriched Louise Reichlin and Michael Masucci’s undeveloped but intense “Yellow Star,” which asked projected imagery to provide a conceptual overview -- literally the larger picture -- of what the live dancers evoked: the horrifying history of Polish Jews in the 20th century.

As in “Yellow Star,” insufficient time for development compromised “Lolita,” an ambitious dance drama choreographed by Natsuo Tomita and Murray Phillips, with videography by Maria and Kevan Jenson. An actor, two dancers and a phantom character on a TV screen interacted here -- and one dance duet pretended to show the simultaneous video transmission of Ryan Heffington documenting his seduction of Lisanna McDermott with a hand-held camcorder. But the synchronization of stage and screen failed to match.

It matched perfectly in Allan McCormick and Eric Wylie’s clever “Industry and Seduction,” which used screen dancers to amplify the impact of four women’s rock-dancing on stage. McCormick’s own virtuosity served as a bigger-than-life movie special effect.

Unfortunately, pieces choreographed by Judy Pisarro-Grant (“Yesterday’s News”), Hanh Nguyen (“Instant Gratification”), Moonea Choi (“03Broken Wing”) and “Caught Between” co-producer Deborah Brockus (“Had We But World Enough”) tended to fall apart because of too many unintegrated components or the prevalent wooze factor.

Among the films without a live dance complement, Charles Carr’s “Slumberdance” allowed far more sustained and entertaining improvisational movement on screen than his hopelessly fragmented “Iriskomotion.” In “Seven Sins,” Nina Winthrop and Maria Antelman reduced dancing to feeble action-bursts, but their dissolving freeze-frames in “Et Toi?” achieved a surreal beauty.

The linked stills of “Four Minutes” by Sallie DeEtte Mackie provided a striking visual overture to the program, and Brockus’ film-dance “Places Between” became its hyper-woozy finale.