Performers as Brushes, Their Steps as Strokes

By GIA KOURLAS

Even televised and interrupted with insipid commentary, the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, overseen by the film director Zhang Yimou, achieved a rare kind of mass intoxication. The Chinese-born, New York-based choreographer Shen Wei was part of the creative team. At one point a scroll unrolled to reveal dancers using their bodies as brushes to enact something resembling living calligraphy.

For those who didn’t get enough of that brief passage, Mr. Shen is back with “Connect Transfer II,” an hourlong version of the dance at Judson Memorial Church. Performed in the round on Wednesday night, the work began as a spotlight was beamed on a tripod. One by one, dancers appeared, hazily mirroring the tripod’s shape in an assortment of conventional moving-sculpture formations.

Their expressions, largely stares at once blank and pious, were vaguely distracting. With scissor-swift legs they traversed the stage, some painting black curlicue designs, as another group inched backward, linked together like a giant caterpillar.

“For years I have used my body as a tool, experimenting with ways of moving, with all varieties of expression,” Mr. Shen writes in his program notes.

But in “Connect Transfer II” such variety isn’t especially apparent. While well articulated, the dancing — either slow and full of meaningful touches among performers, or sped up to highlight frantic footwork — suffers from a standardization of spirit. For all the entrancing moments, “Connect Transfer II” never feels whole.

Mr. Shen’s solos show what a phenomenal dancer he is, how his tough yet simple presence gives his movement phrases a steely recklessness. But in this quest to explore the relationship between dance and visual art, he is frequently heavy-handed. After pouring black paint along the perimeter of the stage, dancers, wearing socks, dip their toes into the thick puddles and lunge forward, smearing lines across the white surface. Just as the movement settles into a dull pattern of fall and recovery, the scene soon resembles a puerile foot-painting exercise.

The music, by Kevin Volans, Iannis Xenakis and Gyorgy Ligeti and performed by the Flux Quartet and Stephen Gosling on piano, is beautiful, while Jennifer Tipton’s lighting design gives the stage an emotional luster. In this art exercise Ms. Tipton manages to paint the dancers with more imagination than they paint the stage.

Performances by Shen Wei Dance Arts continue through Sunday at Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square South, Greenwich Village; (212) 962-1113, shenweidancearts.org.