This trend continues over the course of the performance: “Tree of Codes” plants dancers with beautiful bodies on stage, but presents them as design patterns, not people. But despite her plasticity, I wanted her to dance with more dynamite. Her flexibility and reach were extraordinary, and she moved like liquid silver. I could not keep my eyes off of the first female dancer. Behind them, another couple dances behind a plexiglass backdrop, and the four dancers mirror each other’s movements. As they swan dive into each other, they dance out what could be a funeral dirge or a mating ritual. In one pas de deux, a modelesque dancer melds herself to her male counterpart. And the team behind the ballet try to bring this narrative to life. Foer, as noted, finds "an awkward undecided direction, a shaky and uncertain line of indefinite basic sadness” in Schulz’s work. But as the evening progresses, the work exhausts its whimsy. In these scenes, “Tree of Codes” establishes itself as a work of illusion. As they flick their wrists, they bring to life Foer’s “thousand kaleidoscopic possibilities.” And Jamie xx, once again, sets the mood-this time, with a chorus that evokes whale songs. They have, it seems, slipped these limbs into large sleeves that look like phonograph horns. The subsequent scene is more colorful, but still coy: only the dancers’ arms are visible. As the piece progresses, the dancers arrange themselves to create clusters of light or constellations, and the accompanying music-a wistful hum of lines like “you go again from the darkened stars”-suggests that our story begins just after midnight, when nature comes out to play. They likely glide across the stage in a series of sashays and tumble gracefully, but it’s tough to tell: with only the illuminated parts of their costumes visible, they seem to flit like fireflies. They wear baubles of light, but their limbs, their torsos, and their faces are cast in the shadows. The work opens with a whisper, as dancers mount the platform stage in darkness. But, just as Foer’s book is hailed as a work of art more than as a novel, so this ballet is more a feat of design than of dance. “Tree of Codes” offers a mesmerizing display of movement, backdrops, and music. premiere at New York City’s Park Avenue Armory on September 14. The performance debuted at the Manchester International Festival this past July and made its U.S. Now, choreographer Wayne McGregor, composer Jamie xx, and visual artist Olafur Eliasson have transformed that story once again by developing Tree of Codes into a ballet.
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