Maybe not HERE

Soul Leaves Her Body, running now at HERE Arts Center, would benefit from relocation. No disrespect to HERE, but this piece--co-directed by Peter Flaherty and the dance artist Jennie MaryTai Liu, who also choreographed it--seems ready to bust its sheath. 

At 75 minutes, it's a biggish kind of multidisciplinary work which, unfortunately, often moves at a ponderous, earnest pace. But there are some very good big things about it, too--like set designer Peter Ksander's tall, adjoined glass panels that cleverly serve as video screens and create dramatic entranceways. Of the four live performers, including Liu, the work is best served by dancer Leslie Cuyjet's vivid, delicately-detailed performing and actress Wai Ching Ho's beautiful warmth. These two possess an assured subtlety and conviction that tug at one's attention.

The piece, inspired by a story from China's 13th Century Yuan Dynasty, overlaps and merges ancient and contemporary narratives in a way that is sometimes intriguing, sometimes drawn out and not quite fresh. The point of it all--which, according to press materials, is something about love and family and distance and digital communication--wanders about and gets lost at times. But its visual elements--especially the larger-than-life imagery of characters in period theatrical garb and makeup--are knockouts.

Soul Leaves Her Body feels not only stuffed into its space but, with the maneuvering of the glass panels or the deployment of the video, shoved into our laps and faces. I imagine it, instead, in a more generous setting where its virtues can perhaps be reconsidered and better appreciated.

Soul Leaves Her Body continues through November 23. Ticketing information and directions

HERE Arts Center

145 6th Avenue, Manhattan 

(entrance on Dominick Street, one block south of Spring)