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When a repertory company comes to town with two programs, and one has a Rennie Harris dance on it, choose that<\/em>. This Philadelphia hip-hop choreographer is a treasure and so are his dances.<\/p>\n \u201cDear Frankie,\u201d the rousing closer to a program by Hubbard Street Dance Chicago<\/a>, was such a poetic wonder \u2014 in sound, in look, in stillness and in action \u2014 that it almost made up for what had come before it. Almost. <\/em>It was a long night.<\/p>\n Hubbard Street, now in its 46th season, returned to the Joyce Theater on Tuesday for a two-week run. (The program next week features works by Lar Lubovitch, Rena Butler and Aszure Barton.) Now under the artistic direction of Linda-Denise Fisher-Harrell<\/a> \u2014 a former company member who went on to be a much admired Alvin Ailey dancer \u2014 the group presented the New York premiere of Harris\u2019s \u201cDear Frankie\u201d along with works by Darrell Grand Moultrie and Thang Dao.<\/p>\n In \u201cDear Frankie,\u201d<\/a> Harris pays homage to a pioneer of Chicago\u2019s house culture, the D.J. Frankie Knuckles<\/a>. Known as the \u201cgodfather of house,\u201d he was pivotal in introducing the genre to the world. The dance starts off slowly yet stylishly: James Clotfelter\u2019s lighting immediately transports us to a club where, every so often, bright white beams flood light onto the stage. It\u2019s so stark, so subtle in how it encloses the space, turning it into a haven.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n At first dancers cluster at the center of the stage, but gradually they wander off, gliding together in small groups as they tickle the floor with footwork before slipping into other constellations of bodies. In these brief fragments, like tiny chapters building up to a book, the dancers find their bearings as the beat begins to soak into their skin. At one point, Abdiel Figueroa Reyes lets loose, his limbs rippling like spun silk.<\/p>\n Beyond steps, glorious as they are, Harris is passing on Chicago house culture. In a series of voice-overs, he and others describe the importance of the dance club the Warehouse<\/a>, where people discovered freedom through movement and found their chosen families.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The dancers\u2019 footwork starts out in fits and spurts, becoming more intricate, more full-bodied as Harris weaves slow motion within blissfully fast crossing feet and lanky arms. His deft musicality and visual finesse creates more than a dance. Harris molds the energy of a space as if it\u2019s a spiritual act, transforming a proscenium stage into a club.<\/p>\n It helps that the dancers look like real people in Imani Sade\u2019s separates, a mix of athletic and sensual. The music by Harris and the producer Darrin Ross \u2014 including the galvanizing \u201cWe Gon Be Alright,\u201d which Ross composed, produced and mixed \u2014 carries the dancers to a sweeping, pulsating finale. Then Aaron Choate walks to the center of the stage, ponytail swinging, and arches under a spotlight topped with a strobe flash. In that second, the scene disappears as if Choate has ascended to heaven. This makes sense: House is<\/em> heaven.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But the night had been a struggle up to that point. Another New York premiere, Thang Dao\u2019s \u201cNevermore,\u201d is inspired by Edgar Allan Poe\u2019s \u201cThe Raven\u201d and Eastern folklore. Named after the Raven\u2019s repeated refrain, \u201cNevermore,\u201d the dance is an uneven weaving together of two stories.<\/p>\n The work, which includes a recitation of the poem as part of James G. Lindsay\u2019s score, layers \u201cThe Raven,\u201d in which a man descends into despair after the loss of his love, Lenore, with a folk tale in which a forbidden romance blooms between a weaver girl and a cowherd. The girl and the cowherd are separated by a celestial river, but are able to be together one day a year when a flock of magpies forms a bridge over it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Elliot Hammans, in billowy white, sits on an armchair made up of dancers \u2014 they push him forward and pull back \u2014 as he yearns for Lenore (Jacqueline Burnett), in flowing red. They reappear later as the lovers in the folk tale. But this is really about the birds, dancers draped in black with red socks, who angle their arms like wings with flickering fingers and swirl around the stage in fluttering lines. Eventually Burnett is swallowed up by the flock, and Hammans resumes his place in his chair, a vision of, sorry, silly desperation.<\/p>\n The program led with Darrell Grand Moultrie\u2019s well-meaning but seriously overwrought \u201cDichotomy of a Journey,\u201d a seven-part dance starting with \u201cVitality\u201d and ending with \u201cResilience.\u201d In \u201cConnection,\u201d a duet for Burnett and David Schultz, the dancers touched the tips of their elbows with a strange kind of fervor \u2014 like a Covid date \u2014 before, eventually, writhing on the floor.<\/p>\n \u201cVision\u201d featured Hammans, in white jeans, contorting and stretching as he reacted viscerally to the positivity and possibility of the lyrics to \u201cIn My Dreams\u201d by V. Michael McKay: \u201cI dreamed of a perfect place with but one human race.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The choreography was more uplifting when all of the dancers converged as one in the final moments of \u201cResilience\u201d to Donald Lawrence\u2019s \u201cEncourage Yourself (Live).\u201d It was a bit hokey, but in the end, the idea of hope \u2014 seen through their shining eyes and expressive bodies \u2014 was contagious.<\/p>\n Hubbard Street Dance Chicago<\/strong><\/p>\n Through March 24 at the Joyce Theater, Manhattan; joyce.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n