In some ways John Jasperse’s “Becky, Jodi and John” seems like a trifle: an entertaining hour passed with three people (and a fourth on video) in a kind of show-and-tell about their lives as dancers. In other ways the piece — first performed two years ago at Dance Theater Workshop, where it returned on Wednesday night — is oddly serious: a meditation on aging and loss, and the difficulty of sustained achievement in an art form typically judged by the most recent performance or production.
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In “Becky, Jodi and John” Mr. Jasperse evokes his own life as a dancer and choreographer alongside those of his longtime friends and colleagues Becky Hilton, Jodi Melnick and — via recorded Skype video — Chrysa Parkinson. All are 45, and their realities are those of any closely linked group: aging, career success or failure, the strain of maintaining relationships. (Ms. Hilton lives in Australia, Ms. Parkinson in Belgium. “I never thought we’d be separated,” Ms. Parkinson says plaintively.)
The work opens with text projected across a screen. “We made this piece two years ago in Australia,” it reads. “Since then, much has changed. Other things, not so much.” As Ms. Parkinson’s face appears on a television screen, the three performers suddenly emerge from darkness, seated in a trough running along the back of the stage. (The lighting, by Joe Levasseur and Mr. Jasperse, is a consistent marvel.) They move with slow, glazed deliberation, flopping one foot over the other, lifting a leg high as their bodies angle back down into the pit.
The trough may be metaphoric: an abyss, into which, later, they sometimes fall. But the idea is never labored; it’s just there, as is a delicate solo from Ms. Melnick. Her casual-looking shifts of weight, swaying movements and angling shoulders combine to offer a portrait of a dancer who now has more than ever to show onstage despite the injuries and physical limitations cataloged in an e-mail message, read aloud by Ms. Hilton. (“I don’t jump,” she wrote. “I can’t stress this enough.”)
The fine poetic texture of the piece partly arises from Hahn Rowe’s score, which evokes both gamelan music and Laurie Anderson-like interwoven text. It also comes from the combination of Mr. Jasperse’s deliberate, carefully layered movement (he makes you notice dancers’ feet and hands, the tiny gestures) and the broader strokes: a funny Q.&A. session, a toy elephant whizzing on a motorized cart, smoke emanating from his body as he dances alone toward the end.
Art is smoke and mirrors, tricks and ploys. But it’s also real people and their lives. Mr. Jasperse — and his colleagues — show us both.
The John Jasperse Company performs through Saturday at Dance Theater Workshop, 219 West 19th Street, Chelsea; (212) 924-0077, dancetheaterworkshop.org.
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