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Only Lucy Bowen McCauley could include a big fat belch in a dance and make it deliciously funny rather than vulgar. Over the weekend at Gunston Arts Center, choreographer McCauley and her company of excellent dancers were up to their usual antics, especially with the opening "What'll Ya'ave Luv," in which Jennifer Olin, Beverly Prahl and Ingrid Zimmer, dressed in elegant black gowns, brandished silver goblets to a setting of medieval tavern songs by Purcell. The fresh movement matched the refined singing of the countertenor but provided a ribald contrast to the salty lyrics. Try to imagine Grace Kelly on a bender and you'll get the picture. "Two-Bas," danced by McCauley and the lovely Peter Stark,was a pretty pas de deux to a surprisingly supple tuba-piano duet played by Michael and Laurie Bunn. McCauley's ability to mix elegant and odd movements, including the successful use of a headstand tripod, for example, was evident. The green-and-red-striped costumes, however, made the dancers look like dancing candy canes. "Burleycue," a fine romp to music by Telemann, had Olin, Prahl, Matthew Gayton and Galeet BenZion Westreich experimenting in light and lofty movement with a sense of child's play. But the opposite of wit does not mean witless for McCauley: Work-in-progress "Between Two Worlds" is a portrait of human despair. Opening with a group of dancers wringing their hands, jerking their heads, seemingly perched on the ledge of sanity, Roger Plaut approaches each one, trying and failing to connect. Left alone, Plaut performs a neurotic, twitchy solo that really takes your breath away.
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