DANCE REVIEW; A Soprano With Scissors, Cutting a Man Down to Size, By Jack Anderson
Sharon Reaves
Ariane Malia Reinhart performed four premieres by leading choreographers in a well-balanced solo program on Friday night at the Joyce SoHo. She was especially satisfying in two works that proved her to be a well-trained soprano as well as a skilled dancer.
Ms. Reinhart sang and danced her way into a snit in ''The Drawing Lesson,'' Doug Varone's maliciously comic portrait of a woman whose lover is unfaithful.
As she sang ''Tu fedel? tu costante?,'' a Handel cantata about inconstancy, her movements and facial expressions grew ever more extravagant. Heightening her rage with a few swigs from a flask, she drew a crude caricature of her lover and then stabbed and castrated it with a scissors.
Ms. Reinhart was vocally secure throughout all her tantrums, and Mr. Varone's choreography allowed her to use her fierce gaze and flashing eyes to fine dramatic effect. She was given capable musical support by an ensemble that included Justin Williams, a keyboardist; Brenda Vincent and Kurt Briggs, violinists; and Christine Gremere, a cellist.
In Martha Clarke's ''2 a.m.,'' Ms. Reinhart offered a smoky-voiced rendition of a song by Kurt Weill. She began by ardently kissing and then recoiling from her shadow on a panel designed by Duane McDevitt. The shadow possibly symbolized an unhappy memory. Ms. Clarke certainly created a sense of despondency as her choreography repeatedly kept Ms. Reinhart, a tall dancer, stretching herself high and taut and then crumpling into a heap.
The two other solos, without songs, were performed to recordings. Stretched on the floor in Shen Wei's ''Body Study,'' Ms. Reinhart moved hypnotically to music by Benjamin Iobst, slowly rising and sinking as she shifted positions. Because she never showed her face to the audience, she seemed no longer a human being but a monumental stone sculpture come alive.
In ''A Room,'' Mark Haim contrasted calm movements set to serene work by Bach with agitated ones choreographed to rattling music by Autrechre. The solo ended when Ms. Reinhart dipped her head into a basin of water as if in a purification ritual. But while the shifts in choreographic intensity were vivid, their dramatic motivations remained shadowy.