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The choreographer Molissa Fenley oversaw one of the most celebrated dance events of the deep pandemic days of 2020: a live-streamed revival of her fierce 1988 solo \u201cState of Darkness,\u201d set to Stravinsky\u2019s \u201cRite of Spring\u201d and performed by seven illustrious dancers<\/a>. It made a splash.<\/p>\n Since then, Fenley has returned to working quietly on new material, building on her nearly 50 years of making dances as the founder of Molissa Fenley and Company. This week at Roulette in Downtown Brooklyn, she is presenting \u201cFrom the Light, Between the Lamps<\/a>,\u201d a collection of short works created and updated over the past few years. Opening night, on Wednesday, felt like a private glimpse into her choreographic mind: no splashes, just a steady, rigorous exploration of movement to music.<\/p>\n The program\u2019s greatest force is Fenley herself, who, at 69, dances with a searing clarity and equanimity, no matter the limitations that naturally come with age. A generosity radiates from her upright spine and notably long arms. (\u201cIt\u2019s like she has two sets of legs,\u201d a friend remarked, amazed.) This is not one of those shows in which a veteran artist makes a cameo to be momentarily revered. Fenley is in there the whole time, holding nothing back. She is joined by the dancers Christiana Axelsen, Justin Lynch and Timothy Ward, all in their 30s and 40s, and the pianists Michael Ferrara and Enriqueta Somarriba.<\/p>\n While the evening includes six distinct works, they could be chapters in the same story. The recurring themes are the lines and curves of Fenley\u2019s limpid movement vocabulary, based in ballet and reminiscent of the Merce Cunningham technique, but developed, as she has said, around the idiosyncrasies of her own body. Arms pass through skewed and angular poses, legs sweep straight up to the side or hook into back attitudes, torsos tilt on their axes or twist in opposition to hips.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Reappearing, too, is a delicate yet palpable tension among bodies in space, which tend to orbit or graze past each other, or touch only lightly, more often than sharing their weight. In \u201cVariation 5\u201d of \u201cCosmati Variations,\u201d to the eclectic percussion of John Cage\u2019s Third Construction, Axelsen and Ward, tracing singular pathways that sometimes sync up, reminded me of planets that align in some fateful way once a century. As they gather speed in floor-gobbling leaps, they maintain the calm amplitude of more measured moments.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Fenley first appears in \u201cCurrent Pieces, #1-3\u201d a suite of solos for her, Axelsen and Ward to piano compositions by Min Kwon (played live by Somarriba). Her opening stance \u2014 feet planted wide, arms arcing overhead like a rising and setting sun \u2014 is arresting in its simplicity, introducing us to her fine calibration of outward projection and inward concentration.<\/p>\n Lynch joins the group for \u201cEtruscan Matisse\/Blake,\u201d stationed above and apart from the others on a low raised stage. By the end, he becomes part of their circle, a subtle evolution conjured with the help of Ryuichi Sakamoto\u2019s haunting electronic music<\/a>. \u201cLava Field\u201d (from 2004, revised in 2022) also plays mysteriously with configurations of four.<\/p>\n \u201cDe la Lumi\u00e8re, Entre les Lampes\u201d (\u201cFrom the Light, Between the Lamps\u201d), the program\u2019s title work, is also its most athletic, a pair of duets that plunge through space, for Lynch and Axelsen, then Lynch and Ward. (Cassandra Trenary of American Ballet Theater and Lloyd Knight of the Martha Graham Dance Company will step in on Saturday.) Carried along by Philip Glass\u2019s \u201cNew Chaconne,\u201d performed live by Ferrara, it has a levity that came as a welcome release.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIn the Garden (with Ryuichi),\u201d is a contemplative coda set to bird song. Fenley, Ward and Lynch, standing on three separate levels, appears to do the same choreography, but at slightly different times. (Michael Trusnovec, formerly of the Paul Taylor Dance Company, joins the cast on Friday and Saturday.)<\/p>\n It\u2019s like watching nature. \u201cYou know that time will pass, and you\u2019ll go forward into the future,\u201d Fenley has said<\/a> of the piece. \u201cBut there isn\u2019t a sense of knowing what the future will be.\u201d<\/p>\n Molissa Fenley and Company<\/strong><\/p>\n Through Feb. 3 at Roulette, roulette.org.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n