"Tomorrow's Legs" last night

There's a lot to admire in Tomorrow's Legs--a new ensemble piece presented by well-regarded choreographer Tiffany Mills this week at Danspace Project. Foremost, it's blessed with performances with courage, resonance, and an air of mystery. Jeffrey Duval, Luke Gutgsell, Whitney Tucker and Petra van Noort are versatile, appealing dancers who deepen and mature into the piece as we watch. Naoko Nagata has contributed some of her most flattering--while still quite quirky--costumes for the two women. And Mills's flashy visual style and rough-hewn movement attack make an irresistible mix. This woman doesn't just use space. She takes charge of it.

I was less convinced by Tomorrow's Legs as an intention and a whole package--an enigmatic collage pieced together from the fragmented fabric of memories associated with various cities--than I was by substantial swatches that felt like they could come from nobody else but Mills. Watch what unfolds when Duval begins to tug Gutgsell's arm; the entire process of getting to the resulting gutsy, risky sequence bursts and reveals itself in your mind. That sequence simultaneously drew me in and distressed me. Likewise, a charged duet involving Duval (obsessed with a science article) and van Noort (glamourously engrossed in dancing the memory of lost teenage love) lucidly articulates their differences and difficulties.

The work, running 60 minutes without intermission, can be seen again tonight and tomorrow, Saturday, at 8:30pm. Click here for ticketing and further information on Mills's Danspace Project season, and here for her company's 2009 calendar.