Donald Byrd isn’t afraid to mix art and politics. Last year, his Spectrum Dance Theater addressed the struggle between Israel and Palestine, transforming the audience into a wandering tribe dispossessed from its land. This year’s geopolitical subject is a mouthful: FAREWELL: A Fantastical Contemplation on America’s Relationship With China. The show deals with the Cultural Revolution, the two nations’ economic interdependency, and our shifting perceptions of that country from Tiananmen Square to 9/11. Slogans from Mao’s Little Red Book mix with surveillance tapes, and Byrd also adapts Chinese dissident Ma Jian’s Beijing Coma as a source text. FAREWELL incorporates traditional tai chi positions—though probably not Falun Gong exercises—into Byrd’s signature high-intensity style, set to a score by Byron Au Yong. SANDRA KURTZ

Feb. 18-20, 8 p.m., 2010