Everyone, including the Swiss, makes fun of the Swiss—for their persistent neutrality, their willingness to indulge our death drives, their perfect watches. But this very absence of civic drama has proven an excellent foundation for exciting new dance. Take, for example, the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève’s latest commission, Outsider, by Rachid Ouramdane. A steady presence on the French scene for more than two decades, the French-Algerian choreographer favors plain movement—running, walking, spinning, jumping—but within a frame of pervasive danger. Fifteen years ago, that menace was torture and genocide, delicately evoked. Lately the terms are both more immediate and more abstract. In Outsider, for a cast of 21, individuals skim across the stage to be flung in the air by clusters of their peers. The risk is physical but implies the social. The outsider here is whomever the crowd might drop. Played live, the posthumously celebrated downtown composer Julius Eastman’s gorgeously fraught minimalism for four pianos sets the stage. —Apollinaire Scherr