Symmetry, Motion and Divergent Aesthetics Julieta Cervantes for The New York Times River to River Festival: A work by Beth Gill at Pier 15. The tourist in me is always grateful to the River to River Festival simply for presenting dance in some of the most memorable outdoor New York locations south of Houston Street. This year I'm also grateful that it lets me catch up with recent productions I had missed, by several of the most talked-about downtown dance artists in New York. This weekend Beth Gill reprised her "Electric Midwife" piece (new a year ago at the Chocolate Factory) at Pier 15 on the Lower East Side; in Battery Park City Luciana Achugar offered "FEELingpleasuresatisfactioncelebrationholyFORM" (shown in May at the Abrons Arts Center). These pieces are as varied as any putative differences between the city's east and west sides - Ms. Gill becomes too Apollonian for comfort, Ms. Achugar too Dionysian - but they also have a few ingredients in common. Ms. Gill had, by far, the more spectacularly beautiful location. Audience members at Pier 15, with mainland Manhattan behind them, could look left to the Brooklyn Bridge; ahead to the East River, Brooklyn Heights and its promenade; and right to Governors Island and New York Harbor. During the performance's 45 minutes, Brooklyn Heights moved into shadow. Boats passed; tourists waved happily and stared in curiosity. In contrast to this location, "Electric Midwife" felt as if it had been composed according to regulations laid down by first-generation postmodern dance makers. Here were the flattened dynamics, the resistance to virtuosity and polished technique, the objective temperament and the avoidance of conventional theatricality that go back to Yvonne Rainer's seminal work, "Trio A" (1966). The manner was of people coolly at work; the material had a scientific method and look. The six women, in rehearsal dancewear forming a motley array of soft and bright colors, maintained constant mirror symmetry and precise - though changing - stage geometries. A few movement motifs were steadily recycled, but they also evolved, bringing new motifs into the mix. The three women on the right never crossed over to the left, or vice versa. Gradually the choreography advanced into the foreground of the square stage area. At the end the dancers departed, two by two. The style was largely pedestrian. Insteps were only occasionally used. When dancers balanced with one leg extended behind in arabesque, at 90 degrees to the floor, the torso went forward to the same angle. The line mattered, but without any element of heroic strain involved in keeping the spine erect in such a position. Other lines made by arms and thighs created straight diagonals and arcs. Two women reverted to a mudralike motif, holding the splayed fingers of one hand beside an eye. The other arm, its fingers splayed likewise, extended low while they stood with legs wide apart, bent and braced. In another motif one woman lay between the legs of another who stood, and two women lay a long time with legs apart. When I thought about the work's title - something I only tend to do after a performance - I could recall images that might refer to mother and midwife during childbirth, helpless new children and even stitching. But that's a cerebral recycling of images and energies that were unengaging, detached and dispassionate during the performance. When "FEELingpleasuresatisfactioncelebrationholyFORM" was first performed in May the work's four female dancers were naked under hip-length wigs. I was looking forward to this on Sunday evening and was surprised to find that, as the women entered the performance area, they reminded me of gonks. (Gonks are described online as furry soft toys from the 1960s and "70s. They were prevalent in the era when long hair was controversial - they were hair's harmless and play-friendly embodiment - but the ones I loved best were little dolls hidden under thick manes.) I'd forgotten my own once-beloved gonk until these four gonklike women entered my life. I'm grateful. Unlike earlier performances, it soon emerged that these women were clothed in leotards. They began by placing bluejeans on their heads, like hats. Then they inched with crossed-over pigeon toes toward one another. Meeting in the center, they bent and let the jeans drop to the floor. So far the piece had a geometrical methodology that matched Ms. Gill's work. The women kicked and toed around until, by leg motion alone, they got the jeans all the way up their legs. None of them were sylphs; the two larger women were best at getting the jeans up over their hips. All four then rolled on the ground, like fish in the bottom of a boat, or autumn leaves, to and fro, for a long period. (During this, we saw that their wigs were kept in place by straps under their chins. One woman's wig, nonetheless, became detached, and she held onto it with her hand.) One of them twice rolled onto my foot. During this horizontal writhing, the jeans of the two slimmer women came off again. Finally, the dancers made it to two revolving doors behind the performance space. The end. I may have made this sound more interesting than it was. When I consider the title, "FEELingpleasuresatisfactioncelebrationholyFORM," I think I can see the idea that these four were working systematically through feel-good patterns of movement and thereby achieving some formal structures, but the movement transmitted little kinesthetic delight. These gonk-women just seemed thoroughly odd, labored and slow, though interestingly driven - helpless, possessed - when horizontal. I had no objection to the choreography - nor would I have if they had been naked - but, though I was at close quarters, I watched as if from a great distance. The River to River Festival runs through July 15 at locations in downtown Manhattan; rivertorivernyc.com.