Eiko & Koma's 'Hunger,' Poignant but Unfulfilling

Hunger in all its guises -- emptiness, desperation, an ache in the heart as well as in the belly -- was the subject of the newest work by dance-theater artists Eiko and Koma, performed at Dance Place Saturday and yesterday. The multifaceted, if not always entirely absorbing, result of "Hunger" was a vision of the darkness into which the human soul sinks when driven by a longing it cannot satisfy.

The Japanese-born duo, who combine expressionist modern dance and the slow-moving art of butoh into their own quietly dramatic style, have long explored the complexities of elemental ideas. "Be With," a collaboration with performance artist Anna Halprin that brought the three to the Kennedy Center in 2001, dealt with death and letting go. "Grain," "Rust" and "Land" probed human connections to food, decay and the earth.

"Hunger" is of a piece with these productions, depicting life as an unceasing struggle in a heartless world. It is a work of contemplative beauty and sharp ferocity, a poignant meditation on the inseparability of survival and food, both physical and spiritual. But even at scarcely 70 minutes, there is too much slack in it, and it never lives up to the promise of its provocative opening tableau.

"Hunger" unspools at a dreamy, unhurried pace in glowing half-light (the sensitive work of designer David Ferri). Clayton Campbell's richly textured floor drop evokes a parched, barren landscape. The piece begins in silence, punctuated by the occasional sound of a creaking hinge. In poses at once disturbing and graceful, the totally nude bodies of Eiko and her husband, Koma -- powdered white and lighted to resemble bleached driftwood -- are upended against an expanse of chain-link fencing that rises from the center of the stage.

Angular and thin, the artists look as if they've been tossed upside down by some violent force, half-resting against the stage on a shoulder or arm, while almost imperceptibly gripping the fence up above with their toes. Their postures bring to mind listless exhaustion, the emaciation of refugees in a camp -- and the sculptural repose of a still life. Gradually they begin to stir and inch toward each other, their reward being as much a collapse as an embrace.

The scenes that follow shuttle between violence and simple beauty. Wearing a loose black shroud, Koma seems to float as he crosses the space in slow motion, bearing a sack of cooked rice, only to smear handfuls of it across Eiko's face. In another scene, a sexual advance turns brutal.

Two winsome young Cambodian visual artists named Charian and Peace are prominently featured; they began to work with Eiko and Koma during the couple's 2004 residency in Phnom Penh. At one point, we watch them paint the backdrop, swiping on birds and mountains in black ink; they also perform an excerpt from "Grain" as well as other movement sections.

There is an appealing tenderness about these teens, but they do not possess the absolutely magnetic skills of Eiko and Koma, and the piece loses momentum when the elder pair is not onstage. Buoyed by their elegance and understated authority, "Hunger" is at its best when it pits the weakness of deprivation against the urgency of need, creating a tension that points out both the grotesque and the heroic in the human spirit.