The New York critics have been exuberant in their praise of Garth Fagan's new piece, "Mudan 175/39," and they are decidedly not an easy lot to please. This may well be Fagan's best new work in years. After initially debuting at the Nazareth Arts Center gala opening in September, the dance was presented during the company's run at Manhattan's Joyce Theater this fall, and will be performed again as part of the program at Nazareth Arts Center this weekend.

Fagan appreciates the positive press, but he places more credence in the response of his audience. "They were on their feet and clapping in New York," he said in a recent interview with City. "They went wild!"

The new piece gets its name from the original national flower of China, the tree peony, a fragrant plant Fagan describes as gorgeous in all its varied stages. The numbers in the title refer to the 175th anniversary of the city of Rochester, and the 39th anniversary of Garth Fagan Dance.

Fagan gives much of the credit for this new feather in his cap to the Grammy Award-winning Ying Quartet; "Mudan 175/39" is scored to the group's music. Fagan explained that after the Nazareth Arts Center commissioned him to create a piece for its grand re-opening, he began searching for the right music and became smitten with the Ying Quartet's exquisite renderings of ancient Chinese melodies on the CD "Dim Sum."

"The dance is a complement to the music," Fagan says. "The old-fashioned way was for the dance to do whatever the music said. But we dance with the music, not to the music - an important distinction. Sometimes the two things co-exist and sometimes they're disparate. And that's when you get a more visual and intellectual relationship."

Pressed to elaborate on his creative process, Fagan confesses, "When I'm working, it's all I do. I don't go to dinner parties, that's for sure. The work consumes me. I don't want the music to depart from me. Once you have the muses coming to you, it's heaven. But they'll depart as soon as you lose your focus."

Fagan lightens the conversation with frequent booms of contagious laughter. He is one of the major players in the modern-dance world and possesses that driven, self-assured quality of the very successful, yet also radiates a good-humored frankness that renders him an easy conversationalist.

Fagan's pieces don't drag narratives along with them, but they do address universal truths, particularly the progression from youth to maturity, and the changing nature of love. He calls himself a purist; he believes in the movement alone. He does, however, seem to enjoy bestowing precise names to the various parts of his pieces, sometimes adding twists of phrasing as if setting out clues to a movement's inner meanings.

In "Mudan 175/39" there are four sections: "No Where," "Here," "Now Here," and "Now." It is in the final section that Rochester audiences get to meet new company member Vitolio Jeune, who was a Top 20 contestant on the fifth season of the popular television dance competition, "So You Think You Can Dance." He is featured in a duet with longtime company favorite Nicolette Depass.

"They're a great combination. They both go for broke. They don't mess around wondering whether or not they can do it," Fagan says.

Other pieces from the company's repertoire will also be featured in this weekend's program, perhaps most notably "Landscape For 10," which hasn't been staged since 1993. Again, the title is tricky: there are 11 dancers in this work. Set to Fagan's beloved Brahms, this dance contemplates the way in which society tends to ostracize individuals who veer from the status quo.

"You do what works for you, and for God's sake let others do what works for them. Then we'll all be happier," says Fagan.

Word came out earlier this year that, with the economic downturn that has affected nearly all arts organizations, Garth Fagan Dance was especially suffering. Fagan says that financially, the company is still in the danger zone. In spite of recent grants and changes within the company, the economic situation remains, according to Fagan, a disaster. Just to get the company to New York for its annual run at the Joyce, Fagan had to raise thousands of dollars. And he bemoans not yet being able to pay his principal dancers the raises he promised them.

"For the dancers and all the people involved I have to keep on going," Fagan says. "But it's been almost impossible."

Garth Fagan Dance

Wednesday, December 2-Sunday, December 6

Nazareth College Arts Center, 4245 East Ave.

Wed 7:30 p.m., Thu -Fri 8 p.m., Sat 2 & 8 p.m., Sun 2 & 7:30 p.m.

$30-$55 | 454-3260, 389-2170, garthfagandance.org