Alexa West Toes the Line Between Dance and Labor

Choreographer Alexa West wants to see you work. “So much of dance is supposed to hide how hard it is,” she told me. “All the dancers I work with are interested in pushing themselves, so we play with making material that allows them—or doesn’t allow them—to do the dance successfully. The labor has to be shown.” In the past five years in New York, West’s uncanny, Rube Goldberg-esque dances have made her one of the stars of the city’s exper