Kun-Yang Lin/Dancers explores life's great circle in a Philadelphia premiere

Life, death, and renewal. We've seen it a thousand times in pop culture and fine arts. It's the circle of life.

But Kun-Yang Lin/Dancers made its take on that cycle, Beyond the Bones Revisited (2002/2012), an emotional 70-minute journey. It had its Philadelphia premiere Thursday night at the Painted Bride.

The piece - choreographer Kun-Yang Lin was inspired by the events and aftermath of 9/11 and his father's death - began with five dancers on stage and a fifth in the audience performing slow, meditative, martial arts-like movements with long branches. A bit of a cliche, perhaps - the tree of life - but also beautiful and soothing (and perhaps a nod to Lin's Temple University dance colleague Merian Soto and her One Year Wissahickon Park Project). The branches were echoed in a large, twisted sculpture on stage and more twigs in the rafters above the audience, the work of Alison Stigora.

Soon old age approached - literally, in the person of guest artist Rhonda Moore in an Indonesian mask - and the other dancers wielded their tree limbs like weapons. But of course they couldn't fend off the inevitable.

Tension built in the dying and death scenes, marked by an anguished solo of slow staccato movements and développés by Jennifer Rose, jaws clenched on the sort of mouth guard that might be used in an electrocution.

One group section was a jumble of people shouting, falling, and struggling with one another. The seconds ticked off in the music - a mix of Tibetan bells, Bulgarian folk song, random sounds, and bits by several composers - and death came calling in the form of Moore in a hooded cloak with a long train. Again, cliched, but not to the point of distraction.

The dancers formed a human pyramid, lifting a woman higher and higher until she fell backward, screaming, and was caught by her peers.

Rebirth was inevitable, but still, it was a relief to see Olive Prince in a cloud of bright red chiffon as both the mother in labor and the new life emerging from the womb.

Moore, too, was reborn: She dipped into a font of water in the sculpture of branches, threw off her death mask, and danced with a supple young branch.

The evening-length piece concludes with a chorus of singers parading through the audience and onto the stage, joining the dancers in that circle of life, with simple folk-dance steps celebrating renewal and hope.

Additional performance: 8 p.m. Saturday at the Painted Bride. www.paintedbride.org.

Contact writer Ellen Dunkel at edunkel@philly.com