A Tere O’Connor show is always an event for which the whole downtown dance scene turns out. But it’s been a while, and this year the program has taken an unprecedented retrospective turn. Along with a six-person premiere, The Lace, which brings O’Connor veterans together with those new to his tight-knit tribe, the 60something choreographer is remounting his very first dance. This 1984 solo, Construct-a-Guy, premiered at the now-legendary annual Fresh Tracks talent night, where the likes of Mark Morris, Bill T. Jones, and Susan Marshall first came to light. Did baby O’Connor have a genius even then for freighting a dance’s construction with emotional weight? Against the gravity of its elusive shape, the abundance of steps—and gestures transmuted into steps—transform the highly individual dancers into characters. The ensemble delicately contains their myriad differences. When O’Connor is on his game, which is most of the time, he is not to be missed. —Apollinaire Scherr