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LINES’ “Triangle of the Squinches,” which I saw on April 16, consists of set-driven (Christopher Haas) choreography (Alonzo King) that is supported, as has become de rigeur for the company, by an abundantly universal score (Micky Hart) that reaches beyond the borders of any continent on Earth. Hundreds of thin elasticized platinum cords are stretched vertically on mobile panels that start out side by side and then are pushed and pulled as units, to separate the space into triangles. They become props for the dancers to manipulate and move through, until, as the movements become more complex because more intimacy is established between the dancer and the cords, they become one with the dance and the dancer. The choreography itself hearkens back to older works by King: repetitions that respond to the subtleties in the music—a tinkle or a burst of baby talk, or the urgent ringing of a school bell, but after twenty minutes’ time has elapsed the repetitions start to become, well, repetitious. What distinguishes this work from the older pieces is that the repetitions (typically: a hover of hunched shoulders and splayed arms, the extension of one leg, then the other, then a turn) blend into a kind of stew out of which an extraordinary duet of two men or three dancers bubble up to offer an epicurean treasure. After an intermission, a different set takes center stage—this one consisting of textured brick-like pieces that interlock, so that each looks like a lego piece cast in various shades of blazing gold speckles. Together they form a wall in which bricks alternate with spaces of the same size. It is a precarious wall, and it is obvious that the dancers have to take extra care as they scale it sideways, vertically, or they balance in acrobatic poses on its top edge. Otherwise, the wall seems benign enough until the music changes to sounds of gunfire and hands extend through the open spaces, so that it is suggestive some kind of terrifying hidden rendition structure, or Camp X-Ray at Guantánamo. A group of dancers travels in a circle, as would prisoners being exercised. Then they slog on all fours across the stage, as if on maneuvers. The wall is separated and moved to either side of a stage now flush with liberated bodies that take over the space earlier occupied in such a triumphal way by the wall. A new wall bathed in white light advances and unfolds into the breech.
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