MIRO troupe thrills, dancing on egg flats

Egg flats, a huge mass of cotton candy, and a cellphone: These make up the set and props, and provide the music, for the latest world premiere by the Miller Rothlein (MIRO) dance troupe.

"From the Spot Where We/You/I Stand (Stood.)" opened Thursday night in the White Space at Crane Arts Old School, presenting one of the most fascinating hours you're likely to spend in a theater this year.

It begins with the performers - four superb, professional adult dancers, plus a quartet of extremely talented fourth-graders from the Miller Rothlein outreach program at Girard College - standing like living statues atop pedestals of varying heights made from stacks of egg flats, those gray cardboard squares with ovoid indentations. As the audience files in, the dancers remain silent and still, their expressions blank.

Then Damir Williams, an astonishingly capable young man, invites the audience to enter the performance space. Several people do, carefully picking their way through the ever-changing egg-flat maze. The dancers, still on their pedestals, start to move - slowly and incrementally, like the members of an underwater tai chi class.

The adult dancers interact with audience members, resting a hand on a shoulder. They then interact with each other, leaning impossibly far forward, to touch foreheads or intertwine necks. Throughout, "From the Spot . . . " (conceived, choreographed, and directed by company cofounder Tobin Rothlein) continues to build. It never becomes rowdy, but it is tender, funny, acrobatic, surprisingly evocative, and includes a spectacular trio involving Chandra Moss, Paul Struck, and Dajon Wright.

Eventually, seven performers lie down and are covered by layers of egg flats, giving the floor a weirdly irregular surface. Williams, the last person standing, disappears through doors opposite the entrance. And the piece is over.

The other performers are MIRO cofounder and artistic director Amanda Miller, Jarrell Battle, Jada Gorden, Beau Hancock, and Fantasia Stone.