**Same dance, but different**

//Linda Belans, Correspondent//

DURHAM - The dancer lay frozen on the dimly lighted stage, her
naked body sculpted into an unidentifiable landscape. Her long,
loose, black hair was splayed against a platform.

The audience, sparsely scattered through Reynolds Theater,
gasped at the sight when Eiko and Koma performed "Grain" at the
American Dance Festival in 1984. Some walked out during the
performance.

On Monday, in the same space, the scene at Reynolds was more
like an international urban crush -- a full house, all caffeined
and cell-phoned up. Eiko was once again frozen in her primordial
position. Only this time, no one seemed to notice. Until the
house lights faded.

How times have changed.

Eiko and Koma have always performed their trademark, glacially
slow work as a duo. But at the request of ADF director Charles
Reinhart, they set "Grain" on two young Cambodian dancers,
Charian (Chakrya So, 17) and Peace (Setpheap Sorn, 18), and set
a new work on the four of them. Throughout the evening, we
witness fundamental need, generosity and wisdom, carved from
cycles of life, enveloped in stunning art.

Eiko and Koma perform the first frame of "Grain"; Charian and
Peace, who are costumed, dance the rest. On a red platform
punctuated with mounds of rice, Charian stands in an angular
lunge and begins to drizzle rice from her fist. It's as
breathtaking now as it was 23 years ago.

This is a rugged dance, with visceral images of hunger, struggle
and vying for resources. In some ways, it feels more poignant
now against a backdrop of images from Darfur and elsewhere.

But the violence that broke loose in the original is absent:
Eiko stomping Koma, Koma head-butting Eiko's buttocks, her yell
in the dark. Set on these adolescents, the dance is respectfully
reimagined -- more an awakening to what's ahead than a reaction
to ravaged conditions.

In the final frame, Peace enters carrying two lighted candles in
a bed of rice. He sets the tray down and begins to force feed
her. We can ascribe all kinds of intention here -- they all
work. And the smell of extinguished candles lingers long after
the final blackout.

"Quartet," a stunning dance about children, families, loss and
grief, invites us to bring our own lives to the seeing. And it
underscores the contrast between the duos. Underneath Eiko and
Koma's fierceness lies a touching vulnerability, a duality they
uncannily embody. For Charian and Peace, what echoes in after-
images is a touching fragility.

The stage is blanketed with sand, and four enormous canvases of
figures hang across the back. They are from the Reyum Art School
in Phnom Penh, where Charian and Peace studied.

Eiko and Koma drag the two still bodies upstage like animals
protecting their young. Koma sends the paintings swaying.
Eventually, the young ones rise and struggle with their parents.
The final repose brings us back to a beginning. Is it death or
adolescent separation? It doesn't matter. It's loss and it's the
cycle of life.

This time, no one walked out.