"Big City" by Brian Brooks Moving Company Some choreographers can take or leave set designs, but Brian Brooks is engrossed by their structural possibilities. Leading off the Gotham Dance Festival, a fairly middling two-week showcase at the Joyce Theater that features five programs and many more choreographers, the Brian Brooks Moving Company unveils "Big City." The company's New York premiere on Wednesday juxtaposed the cold glint of aluminum with the warmth of dancers" bodies. Brian Brooks Moving Company: Standing from left, Danielle McIntosh, Jo-anne Lee, Meghan Frederick and Bryan Strimpel, with David Scarantino on the floor, in "Big City," at the Gotham Dance Festival. The first half of Mr. Brooks's program features older works, including a short film, "Rapid Still," and a duet from "Motor" that indicate he is trying hard to fill an evening. As a result his choreographic vision is stretched thin. His penchant for set design comes into play in the more substantial "Big City," in which dozens of aluminum rods curve around the center of the stage. Perhaps the set is meant to look like a silvery forest, but at first glance it is more akin to a monster collection of broken umbrellas, stretching from floor to ceiling. It's the aftermath of a New York City northeaster. Throughout the work the clumsy installation, credited to Mr. Brooks and Philip Treviño, remains mostly stationary. Dancers adjust sandbags and cables, allowing a few of the rods to move toward the center of the stage, but there is little in the way of meaningful transformation. This obvious dance, a rumination on urban life after an unspecified disaster, is paired with a grating, New Age-influenced score by Jonathan Melville Pratt and attempts to show the beauty of human endurance. That purpose loses power in the movement, during which dancers stand on one another's backs and torsos, as if to show that they can rise to new heights. Wearing urban suits and dresses by Roxana Ramseur, the dancers keep their elbows close to their chests before swirling their hands in serpentine shapes and flinging out their arms. Their hips and legs, pulling apart in opposite directions, underscore the differences of being bound and being free. Such whipping motions are mundanely present in "Big City." Mr. Brooks's work is full of echoes and his repetitive movement has an aimless, weightless feel. A pattern remains: What starts out well enough eventually fizzles. The Gotham Dance Festival runs through Sunday at the Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Avenue, at 19th Street, Chelsea; (212) 242-0800, joyce.org.