Melanie Maar's "Our Other" at Danspace Project At first glance, Melanie Maar's dances are subtle creations, but by the final blackout, it's hard to shake the feeling that you've traveled to a mystical land where nothing is what it seems. In "Our Other," performed Friday at Danspace Project at St. Mark's Church, Ms. Maar weaves an intricate tapestry pairing ideas related to nature and religion, humans and animals, sexuality and restraint. It's earthy, but refined. Sound emanates both from people and from nature, so that once you're good and settled inside Ms. Maar's imagination, you're rarely sure where you are. A factory? A dewy forest? Laurel Atwell, wearing a dress that covered a portion of her head and billowed like a cape, first came into view at the church's entrance. For several minutes, she ran back and forth across the length of the space; her retreating shadow, rendered enormous over the altar, made it seem as though a nun were fleeing a church. It was a wry touch. All the while, Marilyn Maywald, in a bird mask, walked silently around the stage's perimeter, taking a seat every so often with audience members. Ms. Maar, in white, came next. Suddenly the lighting, designed by Carrie Wood and the choreographer, was blindingly bright. Ms. Maar stuck a microphone in her mouth and bent forward at the waist like a bird pecking for crumbs. With one elbow raised behind her back, she flapped her hand like a tiny wing. Ms. Maywald, without her mask, returned to morph into a bird-creature herself - drooping her head over her body like a weeping willow - before retreating to a riser with her back to us while she smoked a cigarette. Within a cloud of haze, the bird-woman became a femme fatale. But Ms. Maar ended "Our Other" with her own strangely suspenseful solo, in which she ran like Ms. Atwell, got in touch with her natural side like Ms. Maywald and, with more force than both, marked the space with wide hulking steps. It wasn't just her space, she seemed to be saying. It was ours, too.