Moschen transcends time, gravity with touring show

Michael Moschen has got a thing going on with gravity. The deal seems to be that gravity keeps Moschen’s feet on the ground, but isn’t as insistent about objects around him.

At least, that’s what appeared to be happening last night, when Moschen brought his touring show “In Motion with Michael Moschen” to a nearly sold-out house at the Maine Center for the Arts.

Rolling eight transparent balls around in his fingers, Moschen appeared onstage in several descending rays of light to begin a series of segments from a piece called “Light.”

Although the crystalline balls weighed a pound each, he spun them with a fluidity and weightlessness that was mesmerizing. He gradually eliminated all but one ball, which he balanced on the bridge of his nose and went from a standing position to a reclining position, the ball remaining there.

As part of the same series, Moschen twirled and swung a teardrop-shaped hoop and rolled one of the balls in an arc twice his body size. The play of lights on the dark and smoke-filled stage, in addition to the tableaux of shapes Moschen presented, gave the work a primal feeling — as if man were discovering form for the first time.

A similar abstract imagery characterized several of the pieces on the program including one about circles, another about curves and a final one in which Moschen spun two torches.

In “Sticks/Vectors,” the spacey music and heavy symbolism suggested some ancient encounter with fire, or the human struggle with the physical world, or a geometrician’s wild daydream.

Moschen moved arrows, arcs and angular figures around the stage, sometimes with a strobe-light effect, but always with his signature lightness.

Moschen also entertained the audience with some straightforward juggling in “Three Balls” and in “Triangle,” in which he created rhythms by bouncing balls against the walls of a triangle large enough for him to stand inside.

“Oscillation” involved an audible element, too, but with balls bouncing from a light table onto a metal disk and creating a sonorous plunking.

The most amusing moment of the night was when Moschen chose an audience member to help in a juggling act. While the man knelt on the stage, Moschen stood behind him and juggled two balls and an apple, from which the man took several bites whenever Moschen gave him the chance.

Although Moschen has remarkable physical control and can create some pretty heady and clean imagery, it was tempting to wish that the show could be a little more fun and energized, and less conceptualized.