A performance can occasionally provoke near-simultaneous sensations of impatience, irritation, fascination and curiosity. Such was the case on Wednesday night during Wendy Osserman’s new “Out of Place,” presented at the Hudson Guild Theater.
Ms. Osserman has been creating dances since the early 1970s, but there is nothing old-fashioned about “Out of Place,” made in collaboration with the Czech composer, violinist and singer Iva Bittova. In fact, the work is provocative precisely because it feels like a new amalgam of some indefinable kind.
“Out of Place” is made up of 12 sections, and about half are dominated by Ms. Bittova, either playing her own folk-driven songs on the violin, singing or producing a variety of noises that range from Kate Bush-like high-pitched wails to animal grunts and squeaks. (When she is not playing live, her recorded music and voice provide accompaniment; sometimes recorded and live performances are overlaid.)
She also dances, in a limited fashion that has its own attractions because of her compelling presence. Even as she crazily slides down a wall while others are dancing, your eyes are on her, waiting to see what she’ll do next. Ms. Osserman uses Ms. Bittova as a force of nature in the work, and whether singing, growling, mumbling or clucking, her presence seems to blow the six dancers one way or another, cause them to coalesce in groups or scatter, or evoke odd animalistic gestures and behavior.
The dancing, set against gray draped fabric (by Ken Laser) and imaginatively lighted (by Megan Byrne), is less consistently compelling. Ms. Osserman uses folk-inspired steps — there is a lot of skipping and circling, and a sense of earthbound impulse — that is sometimes reminiscent of Mats Ek’s faux-naïve movement style. But she also incorporates awkward gesticulation with angled shoulders and extreme facial contortions, splayed hands and hieratic profiled poses.
It’s a mix that often feels meandering and cluttered, coming together fully only at moments. (One is a mesmerizing solo by Ms. Osserman; another a lovely duet for Aya Shibahara, who also designed the attractive drapey costumes, and Victoria Lundell.) The strangeness of the otherworldly music and the odd grimacing and gesturing are alienating. Yet in all of that there is a kind of magic, a sense of being taken to a place you might never visit again.
