Big Dance Theatre's critically acclaimed production of Mac Wellman's Girl Gone will visit New York's Kitchen, Feb. 2-6.

Directing and choreographing Girl are Big Dance founders Paul Lazar and Annie B. Parson in their first collaboration with one of downtown's most popular playwrights. The company premiered Gone in Oct. 98, with downtown's Bat Theatre Company -- a company that boasts Wellman as a Board Member.

Girl Gone follows the adventures of three sisters playing an elusive game of "going away"...to another reality. This new world becomes darker and dangerous, soon controlling the girls rather than the other way around. The play -- atypical Wellman -- utilizes a stylized narrative incorporating grammatical games and philosophical conundrums, a seemingly fit match to Big Dance's style of gestures, movement and non-narrative storytelling.

Big Dance Theatre, founded in 1990, investigates the connections between the two performance types of its title. BDT's work has been presented in a variety of places, such as Dance Theatre Workshop, Classic Stage Company, the Ontological Theatre, Lincoln Center, and the EXIT and VIA Festivals in France.

Last year, Wellman was celebrated with a three-month long festival, covering more than twenty-five years of his award winning plays including: Bad Penny, Terminal Hip, Crowbar and Murder of Crows. The Kitchen, once the mecca of experimental theatre and performance art, has recently turned more toward dance and video installations. Performers Eric Bogosian, Laurie Anderson and Karen Finley were all staples of The Kitchen's repertory in the early 1980s.

The Big Dance Theatre's production of Mac Wellman's Girl Gone plays at NY's Kitchen, Feb. 2 - 6, 1999. For reservations or more information call (212)255-5793.

-- By Sean McGrath