End of the Line?

When it comes to the ratio of hours spent creating a production to actual time on stage, dance companies tend to get the short end of the stick. Most shows, months in the making, appear like blips on the public radar for one weekend, two if the group is decently endowed. So when Deborah Slater announced her company would restage last spring's zealously received The Desire Line, we had to cheer the middle finger she's giving the old expectation that modern dancers crank out new work year after unsustainable year. Those who didn't see the show at Dance Mission's intimate space can catch the latest incarnation, expanded for the Cowell Theater, where a sound installation created for the long hallway to the theater lobby ushers audiences from their urban environs into the world of the footlights. Unfolding amid a gyroscopic evolution of trios, duets, and solos, The Desire Line draws inspiration from the charged moments of human connection in the paintings of Alan Feltus. Given the ephemeral nature of dance, our guess is that even audiences who saw it the first time will appreciate the chance to reacquaint themselves with Slater's nuanced, labyrinthine world.
March 28-29, 8 p.m., 2008