Is Stephen Petronio too sexy for his dances? He’s a fixture on the downtown scene — always working with the right designers and the right music, but sometimes that’s all you get.
At his best, as in one of the pieces on the bill at the Joyce this week, there’s more.
Celebrating its 25th anniversary, Stephen Petronio Company is performing a program drawn from throughout his career.
Two short pieces don’t have much substance. “Love Me Tender,” a brief solo from 1993 set to Elvis Presley, features Julian DeLeon in a sparkly white shirt and tiny briefs, as well as his coordinated, fluid and wildly preening dancing.
“Foreign Import,” a brief trio to Radiohead, has two women in diaphanous white shifts joined by a guy in a silver vest and black hot pants. It’s beyond gay-fabulous. But if you strip away all the fabulousness and look at the dance itself, there isn’t much besides loose steps and wiggling around.
Petronio himself — now 54 — still dances with gripping focus. He performs a 1986 solo, “#3,” that’s a lot more substantial, even though he never moves from his spot onstage. In a white shirt and undone bow tie, swaying unsteadily to wailing saxes, he looks as if he’s waiting for a party that never shows up.
And then there’s “MiddleSexGorge,” the one work on the program good enough to make the whole evening worthwhile.
Made in 1990, it has a pulsing but arty score by post-punk band Wire and over-the-top costumes by H. Petal, who puts the men in corsets and little else. Four Amazonian women in black leotards manhandle the guys.
The dancing has the same rubbery yet balletic style as the other pieces. But there’s more: The whole thing holds together through its structure and riveting atmosphere.
“MiddleSexGorge” says something about sexuality — and about dance. That’s when Stephen Petronio is really fabulous.