Simone Forti's "That Fish Is Broke" at Danspace Project Thursday evening a woman walked into St. Mark's Church and began telling the sparse crowd assembled there about her trip from California. As the woman, who looked to be in her 70s, talked serenely and informally, she traveled back and forth on a diagonal, her gesticulations exaggerating those that normally accompany speech. Her musings turned to the Moon, to the center of the Earth. As she related a Hopi folk tale about staying open to the universe as you make a name for yourself, her gestures mocked, as gently as possible, the notion of becoming famous. Simone Forti performing in "That Fish Broke" at Danspace Project at St. Mark's Church. Her name was Simone Forti, and she is famous. The presentation was part of Judson Now, Danspace Project's season-long look at Judson Dance Theater, the 1960s experimental collective. Ms. Forti, born in 1935, was not a Judson member, but she participated in the composition classes led by Robert Dunn that instigated the Judson movement, and her works using children's games, everyday movement and improvisation were central to the era's redefinition of dance. Rather than revive any of those historical works for Judson Now, Ms. Forti offered "That Fish Is Broke," an example of a current practice she calls "News Animation." In this improvisational exercise she gathers a friend or two and conducts a conversation, in integrated speech and motion, about the news of the day and whatever is on their minds and thus in their bodies. Among Ms. Forti's friends on Thursday was Brennan Gerard, who hadn't yet graduated from college when Ms. Forti became eligible for Medicare. Where Ms. Forti seemed imperturbable, Mr. Gerard appeared anxious, chastising and correcting himself. He expressed anger toward the world, notably toward some of the empty seat cushions, which he gave a whacking. If Mr. Gerard had the air of a disgruntled graduate student, Terrence Luke Johnson, closer to Ms. Forti's end of the age scale, behaved like a professor. He brought on books and told a story about German political and religious philosophers, a long-winded story that fizzled at the end. When Mr. Johnson shared some of his personal history he was on surer ground, as was Mr. Gerard. But their contributions to the conversation failed to get it going, and most of the topical references - Hurricane Sandy, Syria, the HSBC money-laundering scandal - felt forced. Mr. Johnson's guilt and especially Ms. Gerard's aggression and impatience made the two men potentially exciting foils for Ms. Forti, but true to character she kept defusing tension, consoling, excusing. The contact-improvisation partnering, which briefly involved Mr. Gerard sitting on Ms. Forti's back, defaulted to something like cuddling. This left only Ms. Forti's wonderful equanimity to savor. Her way of thinking aloud somatically was beautiful to behold, even if what she had to say wasn't all that interesting. At one point she was crumpling newspaper and gathering it around her like a blanket. As an allusion to hurricane-induced homelessness, this was too obvious, too easy. But then Ms. Forti picked up the paper and traced her hand down an edge, connecting it to coastlines, a theme Mr. Gerard had introduced earlier, and the whole evening came together for a moment. That's thinking with the body.