Dancers, musicians embody levels of romance

Love is divine, unless it has gone sour. Relationships are bliss, if you can find one. And every lover, at some point, feels alone.

That’s our valentine gift from choreographer George Staib, whose “Contemporary Dance-Vintage Music” is an enticing and often very pleasurable evening.

On the Emory faculty, Staib created seven works for women of varying experience, from faculty to students to professional guests.

Part of the show’s vitality rests with the Vega String Quartet, an Emory in-residence ensemble, playing together and on their own and sometimes even messing with the choreography.

The cryptically titled “And Softens the Rocks” is in five parts, with music by Bach. Ten dancers in splotchy pink tops stride to the center and recline meaningfully, as if shepherdesses in a Poussin pastoral painting. They tussle and partner while remaining on the floor, offering an Arcadian tableau on affection and acceptance.

Then Staib and Kathleen Wessel jolt us to the modern world. They do a little disco and a little mime, always at opposite corners of an imaginary square room. When they finally run toward each other, arms outstretched, they miss completely. We get Staib’s summary on domestic relationships: Whatever.

“Whack” involves five tango-strutting hookers (music by Carlos Gardel), as slinky and nasty as alley cats. It was shallow, cute, funny.

Everything came together with “Tear the Marble.” To an atmospheric, electro-minimalist quartet by Richard Einhorn, the moves were seamlessly tuned to the music, now bold and kinetic, now squatting low yet feeling free.

Where much of Staib’s choreography seems didactic and obvious —- he puts it out there, with no layers —- “Marble” revealed plenty but still held something in reserve. It felt magnetic, tense, euphoric —- like romance itself.

IN PERFORMANCE

George Staib’s “Contemporary Dance-Vintage Music”

8 tonight. $15-$20. Emory Performing Arts Studio, 1804 N. Decatur Road, 404-727-5050, arts.emory.edu.