X-Acting dance

Denmark's Kitt Johnson (of Kitt Johnson X-Act) entered dance as an elite athlete at age 24. Her solo work Rankefod--given its New York premiere in the dimmed, solemn confines of St. Mark's Church--shows her harboring a convert's pure absorption in an embraced faith. The 55-minute piece--named for a class of parasitic crustaceans, such as barnacles--appears to be an earnest expression of nature in evolution. Its accompaniment--composed and performed by Sture Ericson--comes in thick layers and clusters, like the sounds of doomed creatures and environments being sucked into a black hole. Charlotte Østergaard’s set gives birth to a strange, brittle critter (Johnson) in a landscape of richly-worked textile that is, by turns and by virtue of Mogens Kjempff's variant lighting, murkily folkish and shimmeringly, mysteriously elegant.

Johnson has won praise and frequent honors for her dancing and choreography. She is indeed a striking, authoritative presence, a master of physical contortion and contorted perambulation. She draws us out of our human mindspace into something entirely primeval. And yet, Rankefod, with its strong thematic and visual kinship to Butoh, seems--as concept and choreography--to be more derivative than fresh.

Kitt Johnson X-Act's Rankefod continues tonight and tomorrow at 8:30pm at Danspace Project (866-811-4111).