Franceoff! Danceoff!

Only a smidgen of my memory of Franceoff!Danceoff!--presented last night at PS 122 in conjunction with Crossing the Line: FIAF Fall Festival--survived a good night's sleep. I'm a fan of curators Terry Dean Bartlett and Katie Workum, but this was not their finest hour-and-a-half.

I did enjoy filmmaker John Bush's opener--Zephyr--with its altered-state clarity of color and depth and its breathless, innocent whimsy. Choreography by French-born Nadine Helstroffer--danced by Helstroffer, Patti Bradshaw and Celeste Hastings--featured a trio of sleepy, wind-ruffled blossoms in the green soul of the city.

Franceoff!Danceoff then veered off into the hyper, the slight and the murky--except for Laura Peterson's Security, a piece I almost dismissed on first sight as a trifle. Katie Harris, Christopher Hutchins, Kate Martel and Peterson--all clad in black-and-pink striped costumes, pale panties with rows of ruffles across the butt, and serious kneepads--entered the space on all fours and began to crisply pad to and fro across the floor to the sound of an Eartha Kitt tune, moving their limbs and heads as if they were little mechanical dogs. I was prepared to file this under Cutesy, and it was cute but not without actual humor--a big distinction these days. In a little doggy interaction--sometimes flirtatious, sometimes standoffish--between Peterson's and Christopher Hutchings's mercurial facial expressions have genuine sly humor. Guess that title refers to the most recent airport security concerns, huh? Timely!