Anne-Marie Mulgrew & Dancers Company presents 'Strange Dreams'

This concert, choreographed by founder and artistic director Anne-Marie Mulgrew in collaboration with the company’s dancers, also featured work by guest artists. According to the program notes, Strange Dreams explores the ephemerality of dream states.

Dreams tend to defy logic and chronology and can be alternately haunting and humorous. Waking up in the morning, we remember them in fragments. Those that stand out are usually longer, complex, and vivid. In keeping with the nature of dreams and memory, the most memorable of Strange Dreams’ many parts were its longer, more stirring sections.

Blurring lines

The performance began and ended with Mulgrew in a swing hanging above the stage as if from a tree branch. She pointed her toes and tilted her head back as she swung. These gestures suggested timelessness and whimsy, sensations reinforced by a screen projection of orchids in the opener and a recording of Yeats’s poem “When You Are Old” in the finale.

Perhaps the sections in between reflected the swinger’s dreams as her mind wandered or drifted into sleep. Among the evening’s best segments were “Cathedral Dreams” and “L’Amour.” Both highlighted appealing and important aspects of contemporary dance: combining muscular athleticism with classical grace and undermining traditional gender roles.

“Cathedral Dreams,” performed by the company, was at once masculine and feminine, aggressive and delicate, as it alternated between arm movement resembling a boxing hook and balletic jumps. Similarly, this piece suggested the natural as well as the mechanical; arms moved sinuously, then linked in a circle as dancers seemed to form a spinning gear.

“L’Amour,” a romantic, playful duet for Sean Thomas Boyt and Jorge Rullán, evoked the give and take, push and pull of love’s tango. This dance transcended gender and orientation as the duo took turns leading and following, lifting and being lifted.

“The Mirage” linked Rullán and Leslie Ann Pike with a long, lacy piece of white fabric. The fabric was wrapped around Pike like a veil or shroud as she entered. A long train trailed behind her, and as she advanced I saw Rullán wrapped within it.

Rullan looked like an insect wrapped in a cocoon as Pike dragged him along. In the best possible way, “The Mirage” made me think of Chisena Danza’s “Entrapment,” which also incorporates fabric into dance in visually and emotionally arresting ways. (Nearly two years after I first saw it, “Entrapment” remains my favorite original work by a Philadelphia choreographer.)

"Silly nonsense"

Other standout sections drew on the silly nonsense of dreams. LaNise Ambrose, Sean Thomas Boyt, Alissa Johann, and Kate Lombardi clearly enjoyed themselves in “A Prelude of Sorts,” a goofy dance performed to Shirim’s “Kozatsky ‘Til You Dropsky,” which sounded like a klezmer version of the Russian dance from The Nutcracker. The dancers wore tutulike neon vinyl skirts, spinning and falling like tops at the end. I cackled at “Sad Cat,” a solo in which Olivia Wood acted out a feline’s diary entries as a robotic voice read them aloud.

The neon color scheme returned in “Inflatable Dreams,” a three-part dance that made inventive use of inflatable tubes. Initially, the stage became the surface of a pool; dancers in bathing caps pretended to swim and float. Then the tubes became tutus and hula hoops.

Later, pairs of dancers performed duets while joined inside a single tube. Funny as it was, this part also showcased AAM & DCO’s talents in technique and collaboration. Finally, Rullán wormed his way inside a stack of tubes, eliciting laughter as he moved across the stage.

More than meets the eye

The company rose to the challenge of Strange Dreams’ diverse program with solid performance. Nevertheless, two dancers stood out. Boyt has an uncanny ability to move seamlessly between movements and roles that are traditionally “masculine” and “feminine.” For instance, Boyt’s pirouette in “L’Amour” was as good as a ballerina’s.

Guest dancer Ashley Searles shone in “Untamed,” a solo by guest choreographer Asya Zlatina, in which dancing, costuming, and lighting combined to celebrate the majesty, strength, and delicacy of femininity. Searles thumped her chest, slapped her thighs, blew a kiss, and threw a rose onstage as shadows demarcated the muscles in her arms and torso.

Strange Dreams effectively drew upon visual images, movement, and staging to capture the ever-changing absurdity of the human subconscious. Like dreams, its 14 sections varied in style, tone, theme, and length. Some images recurred, but mostly the dance’s sections were discrete.

While this mirrored the experience of dreaming, I sometimes wished for a through-line or frame to link them more clearly. Nonetheless, Strange Dreams was a treat, offering moments of striking beauty, laugh-out-loud humor, and thought-provoking imagery.