NEW YORK -- Danspace Project recently offered two fresh takes on familiar dance forms at St. Mark's Church. "Love Storyless," a premiere by Pam Tanowitz, re-tooled the Cunningham style into a polished 45-minute precis, a scaled-down major work with flats by painter Cecily Brown and John Adams piano music played live by Molly Morkoski. And Cherylyn Lavagnino balanced rigorous ballet on pointe with shoeless modern in a solid program of six works.

Tanowitz, who studied with the late Viola Farber, set "Love Storyless" (seen February 21) to Adams's thrilling "Phrygian Gates" and "China Gates." The piano sat upstage center at the crux formed by Brown's six paintings, staggered in a 'v' that allowed the dancers space to enter and exit. The dancers' costumes, by Yukie Okuyama evoked parfaits, all frothy, ruched peaches and creams; they later changed into stretchy reptilian pieces. They wore warrior's makeup throughout, vivid colors framing their eyes. The combined effect of the grand piano, the paintings, and the costumes and makeup created a highly formal setting for the movement.

The well-rehearsed and skilled Sally Donaubauer, Anne Lentz, and Rashaun Mitchell danced. Tanowitz's style blends ballet and Cunningham with her own distinctive movements. Lentz stood right in front of the piano in a rigid attitude, while Mitchell (who joins Cunningham's company shortly) framed her from behind, lunging with his arms in fourth. A preparation for a cartwheel dissolved into a body folding in half and dropping to a fetal pose. Stock barre-exercize degages gave way to flat back arabesques. The dynamic was frenetic, darting quickly and then languishing in stillness; every single move and position, down to the angle of the head felt extremely deliberate.

The dancers articulated their arms in angled interpretations of classic positions. This impression, combined with legs locked in attitudes, reminded me of Piet Mondrian's early paintings of trees -- suspended between organic shapes and geometric logic, making complete sense. Mondrian aside, Brown's paintings proved a good fit. She painted the downstage panels of flowering trees and limbs at a larger scale than her gallery-exhibited work, yet they contained more detail than those upstage, in which the colors melted into serene grey fog banks. The sets contributed immensely to this highly finished evening which showcased Tanowitz's unflagging eye for detail. Carol Mulllins designed the lighting, evoking a range from a hothouse to the Everglades.