http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/18/arts/dance/alessandra-ferri-performs-a-work-by-lar-lubovitch.html 2014-10-18 01:04:57 Alessandra Ferri Performs a Work by Lar Lubovitch A program by Lar Lubovitch at the Joyce Theater featured the renowned ballerina Alessandra Ferri in the role of the hunting goddess Artemis. === Alessandra Ferri The first half of Mr. Lubovitch’s two-act Ms. Ferri is Artemis, the goddess of the hunt; her father, Zeus, has given her a forest glade and declared that if any mortal sees her, he will die. Akteon (Tobin Del Cuore), transfixed by the sight of her, is smitten, just as Artemis is of him. They mesh in flowing lifts and balances in which Ms. Ferri, wearing point shoes, delicately pricks at the floor with her finely arched feet. Patiently gliding through the choreography’s twists and turns, and gamely partnered by Juilliard students, Ms. Ferri — though, truthfully, more den mother than goddess — is as sensuous as ever. To shield Akteon from death, Artemis transforms him into a deer; after the ensemble whips off Akteon’s red beret and uniform to reveal a brown-speckled unitard — it’s an impressive metamorphosis — his hands form loose fists as he cuts across the stage in loping, two-dimensional leaps. I’m usually a sucker for a camp story, but Mr. Lubovitch’s attempt at whimsy — melding Greek mythology with an end-of-summer pageant — reads too much like children’s theater, or as if he had been watching Wes Anderson’s “ His second premiere, “The Black Rose,” more peculiar, veers into lurid young-adult territory. In this macabre landscape, which takes place at a ball and a witch’s sabbath, Reid Bartelme, a sensitive poet type, romances Mucuy Bolles with a red rose, until Barton Cowperthwaite shows up with a black one. He seduces and rapes Ms. Bolles, blinds Mr. Bartelme — he’s left with bloody sockets — and beats him. Ms. Bolles gives birth, and Mr. Cowperthwaite, razor-sharp in his maliciousness, drops the baby on a platter held by another dancer and chases it offstage with an enormous knife and fork. Accompanied by Scott Marshall’s score, which borrows liberally from Tchaikovsky’s “The Sleeping Beauty,” this work is so far-fetched and busy that you hardly notice the earthy, low-to-the ground movement of the dancers. The ending, in which Mr. Bartelme presents Ms. Bolles with a red rose, is pure sap: Petals fall from the ceiling, birds chirp, and the couple swoon. For all its strangeness, the work has a darker shadow: melodrama.