Baryshnikov's gospel: Art and dance can heal

Mikhail Baryshnikov is a risk taker. For the past 12 years, his White Oak Dance Project has given new life to the works of often forgotten modernist masters and encouraged young choreographers to explore new territory.

"I look for the same qualities in choreographers that I want as a theatergoer and dance lover," said Baryshnikov, 54, former star with the Kirov Ballet and American Ballet Theater.

"To see that beauty in motion. Our message, I think, is that art and dance can cure a lot of things for people and make a considerable contribution to their spiritual life."

The nine-member troupe, at Ruth Eckerd Hall this week, is unveiling new works such as Judson Dance Theater legend Lucinda Childs' Chacony and young British sensation Sarah Michelson's The Experts. Also on the program is Childs' 2001 solo work Largo, featuring Baryshnikov. And there's a revival of late choreographer Erick Hawkins' 1961 signature piece Early Floating.

"The whole program is pure dance," Baryshnikov said from his Manhattan apartment. "There's a lot of movement."

White Oak first worked with Childs in 2001 on PASTForward, its tribute to 1960s and '70s choreographers from the famed Judson Dance Theater in New York. Chacony, based on Jose Limon's Chaconne, is set to Benjamin Britten's music. Childs premiered Largo on a program devoted to Judson choreographers at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York. Her new works depart from the rigorous structures and repetitive balletic movement of her early pieces to show theatrical beauty.

"She started to choreograph Chacony right after Sept. 11," Baryshnikov said. "So I think somehow this piece reflects community and an unspoken drama. It's a very emotional piece."

Baryshnikov first discovered Michelson when he saw her Group Experience last fall at P.S. 122, a downtown performance space in New York. Her work, a pop version of that of experimental choreographer Deborah Hay, impressed him, so he commissioned her first proscenium piece, The Experts, for White Oak. Michelson arrived in New York in the early '90s from Manchester, England, and quickly established a reputation for muscular, rigorous creations. For The Experts, she decided to explore questions about dancers' feelings and the identity of dance. Incorporating bubble wrap, a denim tent, a video image of Steve McQueen's Le Mans racing car and her own deepest impulses from her plastic date book, she examines the "experts" in the dance world and in life.

"It's a minimal piece. There's an internal narrative which is quite absurd," Baryshnikov said. "It's an amusing and quite provocative piece."

White Oak is the brainchild of Baryshnikov and American choreographer Mark Morris. Founded in 1989, it is named after the White Oak Plantation, a 7,500-acre Florida wildlife preserve owned by the late Howard Gilman, who was Baryshnikov's friend and art patron.

Baryshnikov loves the camaraderie of dancing in a group but sees more adventure as a soloist. "It's a scary experience," he said of solos. "It's a challenge. It's more ambitious and personal to go in front of the audience alone and make the people watch with interest.

"You've only got a little bit of time to tell your little story and be a semiconductor between yourself, the choreographer, the composer and the audience. Everything goes through you."

PREVIEW: White Oak Dance Project, Tuesday and Wednesday at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater. Tickets are $34-$64. Call (727) 791-7400.

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