by Sylviane Gold
BUGLISI/FOREMAN DANCE. Artistic directors Jacqulyn Buglisi and Donlin Foreman. Program: Foreman's " ... ing," (excerpt from "Field of Loves"), music by Johannes Brahms; "Lisa D." (premiere), music by Lisa DeSpain; and "Mean Ole' World," music by DeSpain; Buglisi's "Requiem" (premiere), music by Gabriel Fauré. At the Joyce Theater, Eighth Avenue and 19th Street, Manhattan through Sunday. Seen Tuesday.
THERE'S GOING to be a lot of art inspired by Sept. 11, and we can only hope most of it has the substance, power and restraint of "Requiem," the solemn new dance by Jacqulyn Buglisi that had its world premiere Tuesday at the Joyce Theater.
Set to the soaring music of Fauré's Requiem, drenched in the heavy, dusky lighting of Clifton Taylor and draped in the billowing folds of A. Christina Giannini's earth- toned costumes, the work is the centerpiece of the first of two programs being presented this week by Buglisi/Foreman Dance.
Its five superb performers - Terese Capucilli, Christine Dakin, Virginie Mécène, Rika Okamoto and Miki Orihara - rise slowly from five heaps that turn out to be their ingenious, multicolored, yards-long costumes, gathered, bustled and tucked to resemble skirts or capes or mantles, as the need arises. Gravely arching their bare backs, raising their bare arms, covering their faces with their hands, the women are a chorus of lamentation.
At times, they suggest the processions of marble mourners on the sides of ancient sarcophagi. At other moments, looking agape into the distance, they could be the witnesses captured in photographs as the towers collapsed. In the end, they are the victims, melting slowly into the five blocks that have served them as both seats and pedestals and now, finally, morph into their catafalques.
It sounds perhaps grimmer and more literal than it is: Buglisi is a poet, not a reporter, and in "Requiem," she feels rather than describes the tragedy. Indeed, part of the piece's power lies in its indirection. (Buglisi's program notes indicate that before it was overtaken by events, the work was intended to be about Artemisia Gentileschi, the once-forgotten 17th century painter who has become a feminist icon.)
The other premiere on Program A, Donlin Foreman's "Lisa D.," has a rather happier source. It's named for the composer, Lisa DeSpain, who has collaborated with the company in the past and whose lively String Quartet No. 1 is played (and, occasionally, hummed) onstage by the Cassatt String Quartet. Mécène is the lone woman, partnered and sometimes tossed about by Walter Cin- quinella, Stephen Pier and Kevin Predmore. The raunchy, loping choreography would probably look better in costumes less encumbered with lacings and lashings.
Still, it's a beautifully put together program: Capucilli and Foreman lead off the evening with the lighthearted lyricism of his duet to Brahms, "...ing"; the weightier "Lisa D." prepares the way for the gravity of "Requiem"; and then, as in a New Orleans funeral, joy returns, with Foreman's "Mean Ole' World," last year's romp to an infectious score by DeSpain. As she leads the six musicians of Catfish Corner in bluesy slides and Dixieland runs, the 10 dancers strut their very estimable stuff - and we strut right along.
