Review: Perfume Genius and Kate Wallich in a World of Angst

It’s happened again. A musician, lured by the nonverbal language of movement, has given dance a not-so-casual try. Mike Hadreas, who goes by the stage name of Perfume Genius, is serious about unleashing his inner dancer — so much so that he teamed up with the choreographer Kate Wallich to create “The Sun Still Burns Here,” an evening-length work in which he sings and dances. Ms. Wallich, who also performs in the work, did the choreography; Mr. Hadreas composed the plaintive music. (They directed together.)

It’s not workout music — it’s music for writhing, and Mr. Hadreas does a good deal of that, wriggling around on the floor, surrounded by a like-minded cast dressed in an avant-garde wardrobe credited to Colton Dixon Winger and Christine Tran of Cuniform. “The Sun Still Burns Here,” which opened Tuesday at the Joyce Theater, is set in a dark, decaying world; it seems to be grasping at a sinister sort of romanticism. But as it progresses, it’s more meandering than dreamy, more earthly than uncanny.

It starts with a solo: Thomas House enters from an aisle — moving from the audience to the lip of the stage — to appear in front of the curtain where he performs a sequence of steps and gestures that cause his body to stutter, then recover as he regains his balance with the heavy stomp of a foot. This manner of breaking down the fourth wall feels stale from the start.

When the curtain rises, the shadowy stage is dotted with bodies. It’s hazy, but their outlines become apparent behind long pieces of fabric that dangle from the rafters. Mr. Hadreas is perched on a rolling ladder; Ms. Wallich, on the floor, plays with pulling a cord connected to the fabric that ultimately reveals him.

The performers and collaborators — Ms. Wallich’s Seattle-based group, the YC; the musician Alan Wyffels, who plays with Perfume Genius and is Mr. Hadreas’s offstage partner; and two other musicians — move with an air of slow motion. But the dusty, moody setting misses the mark. Instead of evoking an eerie gothic theater, the scenery brings to mind something else: putting-on-a-show-in-the-basement with Mom’s old sheets.

The dance’s themes, as stated in the program, of “deterioration, catharsis and transcendence,” are both glossed over and overly drawn out. At an hour, “The Sun Still Burns Here” doesn’t possess enough craft to hold the stage; the production focuses more on expressing states of emotion that come off as angsty rather than fragile or vulnerable.

The performers, and that includes Mr. Wyffels and Mr. Hadreas, are competent movers, but their vocabulary is limited; the dancers are frequently left to their individual worlds in which twitchy walks or languorous stretches appear and disappear like fragments. Aside from some bursts of spirited unison choreography for Ms. Wallich and her group, the action is too limited, too labored.

Mr. Hadreas has moments of partnering Ms. Wallich or being the one moved himself; in one instance, he poses in an arabesque with his back leg held up by a dancer as others rotate him. Mainly, though, the emphasis is on his torso and supple spine, which is so slippery it could just about slide right out of his skin. His back can really arch.

In this universe, it seems the only antidote for mournfulness is sex. At one point, the performers gradually move toward the center of the stage and, in a cluster, grope one another. It’s something of an orgy, but hardly potent.

“The Sun Still Burns Here” is unintentionally funny — as if the cast of “Schitt’s Creek” decided to follow up its production of “Cabaret” with a stage version of “Climax,” the dance horror-dance film directed by Gaspar Noé. Just as it’s too hokey for transcendence, it’s too much of a music video to make the leap to the proscenium stage.

The Sun Still Burns Here

Through Sunday at the Joyce Theater, Manhattan; joyce.org.

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