Process and product: Jennifer Monson at The Kitchen

There is something to be said for process over product, but in the case of Jennifer Monson’s Live Dancing Archive, it is not quite enough to raise the solo show – an exploration of how environmentally based experiences shape movement – out of its intellectual heaviness.

Ms Monson wore a gold, velour, sleeveless midriff and flesh-colored cutoff fishnets for most of the performance, which actually seemed appropriate, conveying a mix of overt femininity and naturalness. (I have recently attended a number of shows that appear to favor nudity over thoughtful costuming.) The stage was mostly bare, with only carefully positioned and repositioned spotlights and a prop not unlike a schoolroom dry-erase board on wheels to share the space.

Most of Ms Monson’s movement was spry, directional and surprising. I would guess that a slightly larger percentage of it was improvised, as opposed to set, but this didn’t bother or bore me in the least; in fact, I found myself most interested when Ms Monson seemed to surprise even herself with new spatial orientations and dynamic changes. I was also pleasantly surprised to find the 51-year-old Ms Monson not in good but in superb physical shape – I found myself wondering if a dancer 30 years younger would be able to attack the movement with such vigor and sense of completion. I found myself both fascinated and, alternately, bored throughout much of the strictly-movement sections. I valued viewing Ms Monson articulate each of her joints and limbs, but it was the sort of viewing that still allows the mind to wander quite a bit, just to be jerked back into the present by Jeff Kolar’s often droning sound score.

Later on, Ms Monson was dressed by a female assistant in a white, pageboy wig and a gold piece of material which appeared to be two gloves, connected. She then pranced in front of a spotlight of sorts and lip-synced the words to a song that seemed to be about a “bird lady”. It felt superficial and a bit manipulative – was this Ms Monson’s commentary on long-held definitions of femininity? I wasn’t sure.

The most intriguing segment involved a completely nude Ms Monson forcing two to-go cup tops along a path on the floor by swinging her hair, while upside down. Near the end of the piece, she dressed herself in a peach-colored, gauzy gown; I was shocked to realize that it was much easier to humanize her in regular clothing, which immediately implied that I had been thinking of her in strictly primitive terms prior to this costume change. Her movement seemed to change, too – it became softer by degrees. Ms Monson often returned to the downstage left corner, sliding on her stomach in a diagonal path and then flailing with her limbs. I didn’t understand, once more, but it was at least appealing to see relatively familiar movement vocabulary.

I suppose Ms Monson has mastered the quality of landscape in her movement. But it turns out to not be enough to hold my attention.