Come together Island Moving Co. and Frederick Sommer BY JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ

When Newport photographer Thomas Palmer unearthed a CD of compositions and improvisations inspired by artist Frederick Sommer’s drawings of musical scores, he immediately envisioned a piece with dancers interpreting Sommer’s work (see "Dance of light," Arts, March 11). Since he had a close connection with Island Moving Co. (his wife Dominique Alfandre is executive director), he began to talk with artistic director Miki Ohlsen about the possibility of a dance piece. A multi-faceted collaboration among two Boston-based choreographers, Daniel McCusker and Carol Somers; the Providence String Quartet and four singers; composer Christopher Eastburn; and nine IMC dancers — with Palmer directing the project and with the RISD Museum as co-sponsor — will result in two performances of Consent to Gravity at the RISD Auditorium this weekend.

"Sommer was very much about finding things and putting things together," Palmer explained after a recent rehearsal at IMC’s studio. "With these artists who came together, my involvement has been to ask questions. I don’t know what Sommer would be saying about all this, but for me, it’s extraordinary to see all these people come together."

Eastburn began by reading through the rich legacy of Sommer’s writings — essays, poems, lectures — and within those, he was struck by lines such as "ideas and thoughts collide and sort themselves out in these fruitful collisions" and "ideas and art are the possibility of an answer tomorrow." Eastburn took those lines (and many others) and made them into songs that are delivered by singers Sarah Davis, Leah Sakala, Bradford Gleim, and Lionel Goulet as part of the score for the dance.

The Providence String Quartet looked at Sommer’s drawings and came up with a theme they describe as "a stillness punctuated by very real yet jarring images." Thus, in one of the pieces for Consent to Gravity, they alternate chords that represent dissonant complexity with those that convey pure harmony.

As an introduction to the pieces of music and recitation for the five movements of the dance and as an introduction to Sommer, Palmer chose to project images of the artist and his work while a recorded interview with Sommer is played. In his own words, you hear about the beginnings of his art and the evolution of his idea of two logic systems, the pictorial and the physical, which "have to learn to get along together." And you understand that Sommer was everlastingly "grateful to photography" for giving him a way to do that. However, Palmer wants to emphasize that "we’re not making an educational tool about Sommer’s work.

"These are not representations of Sommer," he stressed, "nor is this a glorified talent show. It doesn’t matter exactly how it meshes. In the end, it has to be good. The piece has to exist on its own. I just want people to have seen a beautiful dance."

Enter the choreographers. Daniel McCusker made a three-minute solo, a three-minute trio, and a four-minute quartet. Carol Somers made an eight-minute octet and a six-minute duet. And, based on the rehearsal run-through I saw last week, there are many beautiful moments.

The octet opens the dance, with eight dancers walking from one side of the stage to the other, pulling one knee up for a moment, then stepping wide, and then turning. That quiet movement later becomes a leap, one arm up, one knee up. Other phrases are introduced, and all are repeated in unexpected permutations, by each dancer independent of the others or by two (or three or four) in unison. The effect of seeing such constant horizontal movement, punctuated with slow balancing poses and quick mid-air twirls, is to suddenly see Sommer’s impressions of musical scores in a quite physical representation.

The second movement is a duet between two men (Michael Bolger and David Lawrence) that puts more emphasis on the vertical: arms reaching, bodies stretching, faces looking up and then sudden falls to the ground and backward somersaults. At one point Bolger holds Lawrence in a handstand and, as he’s lowered, Lawrence traces a finger along the ground, as if pondering his own "consent to gravity."

Next three women (Eva-Marie Pacheco, Meredith Baer, and Lilia Ortola) moves through a series of steps and partnerings to the accompaniment of songs that use more of Sommer’s thoughts: "art is the eloquence of what things are"; "musical notation is design"; and "art is an elegant combination of proportions in weights and measures." All of these are reflected in this section’s focus on the dancers’ arms and hands, and the graceful lines and arcs made by their bodies, individually and together.

The quartet and a reprisal of the octet follow in quick succession. The latter adds the sound of slapping thighs and more floor work to the canon-like movement of all eight dancers, the whole once again reminiscent of a complex piano sonata. That stands in stark contrast to the evocative solo by Pacheco, danced to songs incorporating such phrases as "images display proportionality when meaning stays in touch" and "the essence of pictorial logic is an unencumbered image." The latter is an especially fitting close for a dance that sets out to create images from other images and to achieve a new work of art in the process, just as Sommer had done with his drawings and photographs.

The second half of IMC’s show will feature The Rose Garden, which premiered last summer in Newport. Choreographed by Colin Connor, it is set to a medley of medieval Spanish motets and canciones. IMC will take Consent to Gravity to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles in June. For a full listing of Sommer centennial events, go to the Frederick and Frances Sommer Foundation’s website, www.fredericksommer.org.

Island Moving Co. will perform on Saturday, March 19 at 8 p.m. and on Sunday, March 20 at 3 p.m. at the RISDAuditorium, North Main Street at Market Square, Providence. Admission is $20 ($15 for seniors and children, $10 for students). Call (401) 847-4470.