Left wanting more by Harris

For nearly 15 years, Winifred R. Harris has created deeply thrilling contemporary dances for her locally based Between Lines company. But choreographic distinction is no guarantee of institutional stability, and in recent seasons Harris sightings have become more and more sporadic.

On Saturday, a new work and a retrospective sampling at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre reestablished her primacy, though, of course, long layoffs always take their toll on a company’s technical standards. And Harris herself was dancing through injury on this occasion.

Although she’s no slouch when it comes to fast, intricate steps, Harris’ most powerful work has always emphasized torso sculpture: the arrangement of body weight and mass to express something profound about women’s resilience. In “Thunder Is Not Yet Rain” (1995), for example, Harris, Laura Laser and Adrian Young flowed through poses evoking ancient statuary, their bodies painted like weathered stone, their movements conjuring up a lost matriarchal culture. Young’s radically cantilevered balances proved especially exciting: motionless virtuosity, Harris-style.

Harris’ own solo “Unopened Love Letters” (1997) objectified an unresolved conflict in her career by showing her increasingly -- and painfully -- pulled between a serene, abstract movement style (to music by Vivaldi) and a funkier approach (to recordings by Marvin Gaye). It’s the plight of many minority artists in America -- the lure of the mainstream versus the niche of ethnic identity -- and her dancing offered no easy resolution.

Similarly, her newest ensemble piece, “This Place Called Home,” spoke of the big questions in American life without pretending to know the answers. Words painted on the dancers’ costumes (initially bright-colored tops and, later, gowns) spelled out the issues -- whether “No War” or “Homeless” or simply “Danger” and “Fear.” One of Harris’ brief solos in the piece found her playing an abused, disoriented street refugee, and one sequence for the six women incorporated gestures depicting the use of drugs to impose a false euphoria.

Harris’ final solo suggested that the only possible way through a troubled era lies in staying centered and absolutely clear about your own identity and needs. But otherwise “This Place Called Home” remained mournful reportage, a companion piece to Harris’ full-evening “One Race Woman” (1999). In the excerpt danced Saturday, women manipulating folding chairs provided bold punctuation to an alarming text: “Every three minutes a woman is beaten....”

Other excerpts and short pieces showed Harris’ range embracing everything from the playful, balletic “A Water Ballet” (1992) to the mysterious, weighty “Like a Deer in Headlights” (1994) to the quirky, experimental “In Soul We Mate” (2000) to the rhapsodic, technically brilliant “When Wet Came to Paper” (1993).

This is a choreographer of great originality, authority, intensity and daring. All she needs is enough support to make her performances integral to the community’s cultural life.