Founded 20 years ago by Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar, Big Dance Theater has displayed a masterful originality in its productions, which incorporate unexpected, imaginative juxtapositions in a unique and persuasive style very much their own. Parson, a director-choreographer, and Lazar, a director-actor who often appears in plays and films, have explored a wide array of historical and cultural territory with wit and intelligence.

For Supernatural Wife, their latest work presented next week at BAM’s Next Wave Festival, they turned to Euripides’ Alcestis, in which the wife of a king volunteers to face death in his place. In a circular set, ancient characters and themes are fluidly integrated with video technology, a David Lang composition and bits of His Girl Friday. The creators were drawn to Anne Carson’s translation of

the play after they directed a production of her translation of Orestes for the East Village’s Classic Stage Company (CSC).

Speaking by phone, Lazar pointed out the unconventional nature of Alcestis within Greek drama. “Most of the Greek plays fit into category of comedy or tragedy—this play so actively does not fit those categories. This is an elaborate way of me saying, ‘I was intrigued by the way the play veers from blatant comedy to darkness; it vacillates so unpredictably in a way that’s fascinating—toward a completely intriguing ambiguity at the end.’”

Lazar was in New York at the time while Parson, whose recent work includes the choreography for the opera Dark Sisters, was tied up with final tech rehearsals for the production’s recent Minneapolis run.

Photo by Mike Van Sleen.

He continued, discussing how they connected with Carson. “She happened to be away when Orestes had its run at CSC. But she heard good things and somehow, without her even seeing it and without us meeting her, we felt a kinship,from both sides. When we elected to do Alcestis, we got in touch with Anne and had a lot of really fruitful contact with her.

“That sense of kinship was not inaccurate—we clicked. She attended some rehearsals and saw a very rough version. I wouldn’t call her an active collaborator, but I would say she was available to us—and was very smart and thoughtful.

“We knew that, unlike Orestes, we were going to have to lose some text to make the piece fit together because of the amount of movement that we wanted to have in it. We didn’t know if she would be comfortable with that, with cutting text. So we gingerly approached her—and her response was: ‘Take out the words and put in dance,’” he said.

And dance provided the earliest seeds as the work germinated. Or, as Lazar put it, “It started with source material of kinds of movement. It wasn’t necessarily always dance.” He mentioned a video of Elvis Presley performing in one of his final concerts and finding inspiration in the physicality of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

“Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis were helpful—their physicality. There are many random things that helped us get a feeling for what style a given section might have. There’s a YouTube video of a horse wrangler training a wild horse. The kind of circling movement there became the physical score for a key scene between Admetus and Alkestis.

“Another important source for us was footage of the Russian Yiddish theater actor Solomon Mikhoels—particularly his King Lear,” he continued. “He was incredibly instructive in terms of enacting a physical style that was very heartfelt, that was much larger than personal psychological acting. It was bigger, more representational.”

A year of work went into shaping Supernatural Wife before it had its premiere in Paris last spring. Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival presented the U.S. premiere in July. The cast of six includes Big Dance Theater stalwarts Molly Hickok (King Admetus) and Tymberly Canale (Alkestis). All are called upon to be movers, actors and singers. Cast member Chris Giarmo also composed the choral setting for a portion of the text. Having such versatile, open and flexible performers, Lazar says, “is essential for creating the work.”

Supernatural Wife

Nov. 29–Dec. 3, BAM Harvey Theater, 651 Fulton St., www.bam.org; 7:30, $20+.