NEW YORK, NY.- It begins with the mystical image of seven men facing the back of the stage, their bodies lit in silhouette in front of a painted gauze backdrop that sometimes looks like marble and at other times, clouds. The landscape is trippy — ominous and enigmatic — as the dancers, taking their time, slowly round over to pick up jackets placed at their feet. In a daze of slow motion, they put them on: one sleeve on, one hanging limply. Their arms rise and fall. Are they praying to an unseen god?

Gradually their feet begin to echo a rhythmic step that has them bouncing in place or gliding across the stage until they form a wide circle, finally spinning around to show us their faces. It’s hypnotic, this eternal rhythm. When they all get going, it’s like the sound of a heartbeat: seven dancers, one sound.

The title of “Näss,” this evening-length work by choreographer Fouad Boussouf, means “people” in Arabic. But it is also a reference to Nass el Ghiwane, the 1970s North African band that Boussouf has said he sees as being in dialogue with the hip-hop groups of a similar period in the United States.

Born in Morocco, Boussouf moved in 1983 to France, where he received training in hip-hop, modern jazz and new circus, later focusing on contemporary dance and hip-hop. They’re all part of the fabric of “Näss” (2018), which is at the Joyce Theater as part of the French Institute Alliance Française’s Crossing the Line Festival. The production has a distinct acrobatic element to it: Handstands abound. If all else fails, throw in a flip. But the work is also shaped by Boussouf’s upbringing in Morocco, and the music and dance traditions there, including Gnawa and Reggada. The wonderful score, by Roman Bestion, Marion Castor and Boussouf, is all the more transporting with its snippets of street sounds.

The ceaseless nature of the dancers, who move from soft to hard and back again as their whiplash arms and legs connect and retreat, sets a ritualistic tone. The men get their sweat on. They never leave the stage. (The group, previously Compagnie Massala, is now Le Phare and based at the National Choreographic Center of Le Havre Normandie, where Boussouf was named director in 2022.)

But as heroic as they are in their concentrated execution of the steps, the dance itself — which deliberately slips into trance — feels stretched, as if what could have been a 20-minute work was extended to nearly an hour.




While the vignettes of choreography can become monotonous and even predictable, the rhythm of the music guides the dancers along, leading them into different realms. Early on, the jackets come off as the dancers, one by one, fling them into the aisles. (Why did they put them on to begin with?) Later, they start to tug at their T-shirts — costume design and scenography is by Camille Vallat — until they pull them over their heads like veils and eventually stretch them even higher to cover their faces entirely. It creates an uncanny moment as the dancers drift across the space, bare-chested and seemingly headless. Or they could be at the gym, admiring their six-packs in the mirror. Sometimes, the intention in “Näss” is murky.

In a program note, Boussouf writes that he created the work “like a breath, simultaneously physical and mystical” and that he rooted it “in the ground and in one’s land in order to feel its vibrations.” The tension between the dancers’ earthbound gravity and their invisible, spiritually charged vibrations is palpable throughout, especially as the energy of the performers rises and recedes. One dancer stands out, whether alone or part of the group: Loïc Elice, who is riveting for his astonishing footwork, but also for the way he engineers loose angles into all of his moving shapes.

If the men start out somewhat strained and intent on holding their own territory even when dancing in unison formations, by the final moment, they have morphed into something of a collective. Once again facing the back of the stage, they bounce, not on one foot but two. As the lights grow more dim, they take turns popping high into the air with more abandon than fury. Dance may have many moving parts and influences, but in “Näss,” it remains a universal language of the people — a path, perhaps, to finding some good vibrations.

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‘Näss’

Through Sunday at the Joyce Theater, Manhattan; joyce.org.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.