Tov ponders the will to survive

The final installment of the 2008 New Original Works Festival ends with a fitting choreographic flourish: a new work by recent Horton Award winner Rosanna Gamson and her troupe World Wide. A stint in Poland during a major theater festival triggered Gamson’s reconnection with her Polish-Jewish ancestry, as well as the eclectic theater techniques of Jerzy Grotowsky. Known for deftly weaving dance, spoken word, music and other elements into a distinctive magic-carpet ride, Gamson applies her considerable skills in Tov , which considers the fate of Polish Jewry, almost eradicated by the Holocaust, and the wild tarpan horse, now extinct as a breed but genetically still in existence as a result of crossbreeding with domestic horses. To see video clips on Dance Channel TV, go to www.laweekly.com/stage and click on the Dance pick. Also on the program: Sucktion , by composer Anne LeBaron and writer Douglas Kearney; and Cat Lady , by writer-performer Kristina Wong. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8:30 p.m. Starts: July 17. Continues through Aug. 2, 2008