‘Sub Versions’: A Substantial Body of Work

In real estate, the prevailing axiom is “location, location, location.” In Collage Dance Theatre’s latest work, “Sub Versions,” which opened Saturday at the Subway Terminal Building in downtown Los Angeles, this dictum proved formidable. Perhaps the most brilliant aspect of the piece, though, was the fact that artistic director-choreographer Heidi Duckler actually thought to stage her site-specific work in this labyrinth of yore.

Built in 1925, the Subway Terminal Building, currently under restoration and replete with sumptuous marble foyer, housed L.A.’s fabled Red Cars--moving 60 million people a year in the 1940s--until suspending service in 1955. The basement was then used as a hospital during the ‘60s and ‘70s, but it too shut down. It is through these long-abandoned corridors, these ghostly, dank catacombs of rail-car storage areas that Duckler has chosen to travel.

And what a journey it is: Making use of the building--and the human body--as metaphor, Duckler explores the DNA of life, leading the audience on an incredible excursion amid the wreckage of what once was. This 10-part opus, sparingly written by Terry Wolverton, with art direction by BJ Krivanek and evocative music by JAC Redford, felt, at times, like the hippest party in town, with a mostly black-clad group of chair-toting spectators sharing in something truly special.

With Bryan Randall (The Brain) leading the way, we marched through these vast spaces witnessing myriad moves: “Don’t Hold Your Breath” featured dancers Josie Walsh and Elizabeth Nairn sharing a cigarette through a veil of tulle (costumes by Helga Grimsdottir); “Perchance to Dream” saw Kerry McGrath opining on the benefits of sleep, as a nurse distributed cookies and milk.

Moving through a narrow corridor (“Blood/Stream”), this reviewer felt like Raquel Welch in “Fantastic Voyage,” being warned to avoid fat cells--here, bodies on the floor. In “Live and Let Liver,” a medical treatise on absorbing toxins, Randall broadcasts the reality, “Nobody gets out of life alive.”

Indeed, “Death’s Door” featured Duckler’s own Cirque du Subway tableau: Bodies suspended from ropes (subway straps?), writhed slowly, injecting a haunting quality before the upbeat finale, “Arrival.” Frank McKown’s lighting and Amy Strong’s sets further enhanced the work, but the real star of this piece is the wondrously yawning space.

* Performances repeat at Subway Terminal Building, 417 S. Hill St., Thursday and March 30, 8 p.m.; Friday, Saturday, March 31 and April 1, 7 and 8 at 7 and 9 p.m. $15-$20. (818) 784-8669.