Former Laura Dean dancer Rodger Belman gambled on a moody set designer for his outdoor tribute preceding the American Dance Festival's Scripps Award ceremony for Dean last weekend.

Mother Nature changes her mind a lot. It looked as if she'd decided to go for the wet look as dancers congregated on the lawn in front of Duke Chapel at Duke University.

But the rain held off until less than a minute after the 32 dancers finished the last of the turns and repeating patterns that mark Dean's work. Only the audience got soaked, as they headed to the neighboring Page Auditorium for the ceremony.

Inside, ADF students performed the mesmerizing "Skylight," which Belman re-created last season. It's one of Dean's signature works, and the Sunday revival was my favorite performance of the season so far.

You can see Belman's student reconstruction of Dean's "Tympani" in ADF's Past/Forward shows July 14-16. And Belman will gamble with nature again in a bigger and longer free outdoor Dean tribute at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the university's Sarah P. Duke Gardens.

Dean's acceptance speech was eloquent and funny, including thanks to her childhood dance teacher, her heroes Copernicus, Galileo and Giordano Bruno "for not being afraid to tell it like it is," to Einstein "for teaching me to think without words," and to dog whisperer Cesar Millan "for teaching us all to live in the moment."

ADF director Charles L. Reinhart's speech was less engaging, including a recollection of his initial boredom when he watched Dean's first ADF-commissioned work in 1974.

"After about 10 or 15 minutes," he said of her performance, "I began to wonder, 'A: Did they not have enough time to rehearse? B: Was our commission money not enough? C: Could she possibly want us to be bored?' "

Listening to those remarks in that moment, I had a similar feeling to that which he described: not understanding the purpose of what was happening on stage.

Fleeing the show

Dozens of audience members at Maguy Marin's evening ADF performance on June 25 know that feeling, too. They're the ones who fled midshow, plugging their ears to block the grinding din of a long rope being dragged over three electric guitars for what would turn out to be an hour.

About halfway through, the exodus began. Some said the deafening noise was the deal-breaker; others objected to the repetitive and increasingly disturbing action on stage.

"I was trying to understand the essence of the piece, but I was so physically uncomfortable that I wanted to leave well before I actually did," said Amyla Strode of Durham, one of the first to flee.

"I thought that the kind of repetition of everyday activities had some rhythm to it, but it was so distracting to my other senses that I couldn't stay with it," she said. "It didn't seem to progress or develop."

"It was awful," said Sheila Creth of Chapel Hill. "When they did the umpteenth time of the same routine, I said, 'They've got me here for the rest of my life. I'm leaving. This is some kind of hell.' And maybe that's the point ... but I don't like to pay $35 for it, thank you very much."

Have you ever walked out on a theater or dance performance? If so, call or e-mail and tell us about it.

Short attention spans wanted

If you don't like what's on stage at ArtsCenter's "10 by 10" festival, no need to flee. Just wait a few minutes and it'll be over.

The festival features 10 plays, each 10 minutes or shorter, using 10 actors in total. Short plays are tough to pull off without resorting to predictable skit formulas. But at their best, they can be potent, funny and even moving.

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