Maybe it’s finally time to retire “Ten Tiny Dances.”

Queer choreographer Mike Barber’s mini dance revuesical-on-the-move has been charming Northwest audiences since 2002. Some pretty accomplished dancemakers – Bebe Miller, Eiko & Koma, tEEth’s Angelle Hebert – have graced the show’s tiny four by four foot stage. The piece has been an on-and-off-again TBA Festival fixture since 2003.

But ultimately the evening is only as interesting as the dancemakers involved. And last Saturday’s “Tiny Dances” installment was underwhelming and frustrating enough for one of the audience members standing next to me to offer his own new name for the night: “Ten Tiny Disasters” (ouch!).

Part of the blame lies squarely with PICA. The sweltering hot Leftbank makeshift performance space was packed at least 150 bodies deep with no place to sit, save for about 30 chairs snatched up well before the show started. The rest of the audience got to shift around in the heat, straining for any glimpse – a hand, a foot, a strand of hair, maybe? – of the dance action happening on that tiny stage. A few enterprising attendees, myself included, scaled a short wall to peer above the crowd; we were shouted down by security moments later. (By the way, I’d like to congratulate PICA for finding the most burly, brusque and exceedingly unhappy security event dudes to work this year’s “Works” in at least the last three years.)

So what happened onstage at TBA’s “Ten Tiny Dances” this year, anyway? I couldn’t really tell you. Halfway into the third dance I gave up hope of actually seeing what was going on onstage and retreated to the warm glow of the coffee lounge (a truly genius new addition to “The Works” this year, for the record) to watch the remaining dances on a makeshift projection screen that cut off half the dancers’ bodies. Nonetheless, I recall being most moved by Meshi Chavez’s violently happy crash and burn solo in a black Speedo and Lucy Yim’s slithery trio with words and bells. I claim heatstroke for not remembering the rest.

(photo: a previous tiny dance in Mike Barber’s “Ten Tiny Dances,” not from the 2008 showing)