Headlong's latest work, Ulysses: SlyUses of a Book by James Joyce, unravels and re-weaves the tale, putting movement to the variety or voices used by Joyce. The literary base of the piece is set by the observing nature of those performers out of the spotlight. They clang away at typewriters, use Polaroid and video cameras to document the scenes on stage.

Scrawling on a pad of paper, Simonet jots down answers to the questions he asks of Joyce's characters, the florist, his wife and her lover, the fireman. Simonet's method of questioning is Socratic. He asks all sorts of questions to delve into the character's inner thoughts. Some questions are light-hearted, as in "How does she get her to leave the house?" (response: "by turning on her Irish step dancing music") but others are more grim and more intimate in nature. "Who feels more hurt?" They don't agree on the answer. With an improvisational tone, they paraphrase their answers with movement. The florist, played by Brick, bumbles his words and stumbles over the billowy white sheet covering the stage. Christy Lee, in the role of the florist's wife, is clearly opinionated but alternately coy and reserved; the fireman's confident acrobatic movements emphasize his robust and eager nature.

In a stroke of brilliance, the company takes verbal notes on the movement of a soloist, recording the description of a sequence onto a tape player. Some are concrete, precise breakneck step-by-step directions. One is blatantly flowery and metaphoric, dripping with classical descriptions of Grecian urns and leaping stages. Another projects a fire and brimstone tone, with talk of a "white shroud of innocence" which is merely the billowy stage covering. When the sequence is performed and recorded, dancers who've been blindfolded must attempt to repeat the dance following only the recorded verbal directions. This section ripples with humor - not only because the descriptions are of a singularly comic nature, but because the reconstructed movements are so very wrong and ridiculous. The toddling movement police, performers Nichole Canuso and Heather Murphy, wearing bowler hats and armed with cricket rackets, add another element of humor. With silent pointed commands, they place the novice performers in their positions and judge their performances.

Very rarely do all six performers appear center stage together. But when they do, their number seems to multiply with Mark O'Maley's lights. With runs and jumps across the stage and shadow people streaking behind, the scene is fairly reminiscent of an early 80s Sesame Street interlude of ebullient children at recess.

Headlong's Ulysses is refreshing, articulate and well developed. It is no wonder that the company continues to make a strong impact on the dance/theater scene.