The Classics Reclassified

T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland isn't the first work theater people might consider adapting; it doesn't lend itself to dancing kitties, after all, and is so dense, so richly packed with literary allusions to everything from the Bible to Greek myth to Hamlet, that it seems better suited to a doctoral thesis. Still, Modus Ensemble, an adventuresome group specializing in cerebral concepts, has folded the epic poem into its dance-theater work with the Tremendous Arts Cooperative, Our Gospel, which launches its exploration of the ways artists draw inspiration from the poem's layers of references. Eliot collides with Shakespeare, Wilde, Buddhist chants, and Sanskrit text in the Modus piece "The Unbelievers," while Tremendous (creators of the Amy Fisher Rock Opera) jump in for act two, "As I Go," a contemporary dance piece for four characters that deconstructs the spiritual "Someday" to describe the importance of marching to one's own drummer. The show opens Wednesday (and runs through Feb. 22) at Theater Artaud, 450 Florida (at 17th Street), S.F. Admission is $10.50-16.50; call 621-7797.

-- Heather Wisner