Daniel Burkholder and company, in somber at Danceworks

As we filed onto the risers in the cozy Danceworks Studio Theater Friday night, Daniel Burkholder calmly spread grains of something from a burlap sack (rice? grass seed? sand?) over the dance floor. He appeared oblivious to his growing audience. His tread was as sure, patient and aware as that of a zen monk on a meditation walk. The grainy substance glowed in the golden stage lighting and contrasted sharply with the black floor. Burkholder somehow cast the grains in wavy patterns and formed and abstract sort of sand painting.

That set the stage for his enigmatic and mostly slow-moving She arrived, alone. If you don’t read the program note, you might not realize that Kathryn Harris Banks plays a role based on a real Russian immigrant. The young woman landed alone on Ellis Island in 1910. A previously arrived Russian immigrant man reneges on his promise to marry her, leaving her in immigration limbo.

The notes don’t say how her situation was resolved, and it’s not clear in the dance, either. The narrative is oblique at the most. She arrived, alone is essentially an abstraction occupied by an emotionally charged female character and a distant, impassive man (Burkholder).

She spends the opening minutes tethered to a stout hemp rope, which Burkholder holds slack. She walks slowly through the grains, and in time we come to admire the delicacy of Harris Banks’ bare feet and certain placement of them. She carries Russian nesting dolls and wears layers of clothing. She could be an immigrant with only a keepsake and the clothes on her back.

Burkholder’s expression never changes as the two address each other in formal poses and negotiate a Russian folk dance. We’ve seen the steps before, but never danced so slowly, so coolly, so point-to-point. The point is that this relationship has no spark.

The spark is all in her. She sings a nostalgic lullaby, in Russian. Jonathan Matis’ recorded music, for bass clarinet and cello, offers variations from somnolent to vehement as the piece unfolds over 3o minutes. Harris, ever so gradually, ramps up the energy in a series of solos, intermittently interrupted by Burkholder. Her thrashing leaves a wake of black floor in the sea of golden grain.

She replaces the rope around her waist. But no meditative walk this time around, and no slack. Burkholder holds the rope taut as she dashes to escape again and again, with abrupt jerks and contractions at the ends of her runs. Burkholder untethers her and exits, leaving her in no man’s land.

The second half addresses its narrative more explicitly. The Chemistry of Lime Trees tells the story of Bosko Brkic and Admira Ismic, young Christian-Muslim lovers killed by snipers during in 1993, during the civil war in the former Yugoslavia. Their bodies lay on a bridge between the Serbian Orthodox and Muslim sectors of Sarajevo for days, because it was too dangerous to collect them.

The long-limbed, elegant Stephanie Yezek danced Admira; vocalist/narrator Susan Oetgen gave her a voice, in song and in quotations from the young woman’s actual letters to her mother. Burkholder played Brkic with a warmth, verve and sensual passion that added up to the exact opposite of his character in She arrived, alone.

He and Yezek grow and deepen their characters’ relationship in a series of beautiful and touching interactions. They meet on a disco floor and advance to exchanges of stupid jokes, fleeting touches, and passionate embraces. Those embraces burst out into dazzling stretches of joyous, fleet, space-spanning, highly detailed dances in parallel. These passages made narrative sense as they impressed as pure dance.

Of course we know that tragedy awaits, but Burkholder has a point to make, first. In 1993, while the whole world was watching, Bosko and Admira became Romeo and Juliet on TV screens everywhere. No, says Burkholder. Oetgen draws a stronger precedent in another tragic couple, Archduke Ferdinand and his bride from the wrong side of the tracks, Sophie. They were assassinated in Sarajevo in 1914, and that triggered World War I. Oetgen weaves in this story in a very few words and without sounding like The History Channel. Elegantly done.

Burkholder’ restraint ennobles the piece immeasurably. No one pretends to be shot. No one has to. Oetgen reads one last letter, and the lights fade. We know what happened. Burkholder and his little company showed not the carnage, but the beautiful love that made the carnage tragic.

This program, Burkholder’s MFA thesis show for UWM’s dance program and the opener of Danceworks DanceLab series, will be repeated at 7:3o p.m. Saturday, July 15. Visit the Danceworks website or call 414 277-8480. Reservations recommended; Friday’s show sold out.