LUNAR SEA
A Jolly Place Where Nothing Runs Amok and Everything Looks Magical

By JACK ANDERSON
Travel agents should be warned. When they arrive at their offices early in the morning these days, they may find lines of impatient people banging on their doors eager to book excursions to the moon. These are dancegoers who have just seen Moses Pendleton's "Lunar Sea," the fantastic multimedia creation that his company, Momix, presented in its New York premiere on Tuesday night at the Joyce Theater.

This eye-popping and mind-boggling production suggests that the moon is a jolly place with lots of cool nightlife. It has hot spots as well, but nothing there runs totally amok. And everything looks magical.

Mr. Pendleton derived the concept for his work from the fact that gravity in outer space is not so grave a matter as it is on Earth. He combines acrobatic choreography with puppets by Michael Curry, costumes he designed in collaboration with Phoebe Katzin and Cynthia Quinn and, most important of all, an amazing array of lighting effects he devised with the aid of Joshua Starbuck. A taped collage of pulsing and throbbing music accompanies this New Age journey to the stars.

Black-light effects produce many of the illusions. Dancers glow in the dark and vanish back into it. They tilt at precarious angles and walk, swim, sit and float on the air in yogalike meditation postures. Projections on scrims resemble everything from amorphous ever-changing shapes to earthly landscapes, tree limbs and panoramic views of nocturnal skies.

Ordinary concepts of weight are constantly defied. Dancers bound about without touching the floor, or if they do, they instantly bounce heavenward again. Scurrying creatures appear to be nothing but legs. Body parts miraculously detach themselves and reassemble. Waving arms become bird wings. Shapes zip in and out as if on celestial skateboards. A duet in which Heather Magee and Anthony Heinl are recognizable as human beings, rather than odd critters, becomes a study in passionate entanglements.

Mr. Pendleton's work says nothing profound about astronomy, but it reveals much about the power of theatrical illusion. "Lunar Sea" celebrates the joy of spectacle.

Although most of it is very joyous indeed, near the conclusion ominous music is heard, spiderlike beings look menacing and formations of dancers resemble alien spacecrafts ready to abduct the unwary. Nevertheless, harmony ultimately prevails, making the moon once again safe to visit.

"Lunar Sea" is a good trip.

"Lunar Sea" continues through May 29 at the Joyce, 175 Eighth Avenue, at 19th Street, Chelsea; (212) 242-0800.