An eclipse, when one celestial object obscures another, is fairly rare, just as the opening of a new experimental theater is these days.


The two came together on Thursday evening at the inauguration of the BAM Fisher in the Richard B. Fisher Building, a handsome performance destination on the Brooklyn Academy of Music campus, with flexible seating geared toward intimate works. The occasion was the premiere of “Eclipse,” a collaboration between Jonah Bokaer, a choreographer, and Anthony McCall, a visual artist known for his light installations.


For “Eclipse,” the audience is seated on four sides of the stage, which is covered in dark carpet. While thin, the carpet exudes a calming plushness that also absorbs the glare from Mr. McCall’s installation of 36 hanging light bulbs. The constellation extends over the stage, its single bulbs dangling at varying lengths.


A former member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Mr. Bokaer relies on visual design as a starting point for his choreography; at times, it feels as if he were playing a game of chess that pits sleek bodies against minimalist structures. In “Eclipse” two solos by Mr. Bokaer bookend a dance for four, in which Tal Adler-Arieli, C C Chang, Sara Procopio and Adam H. Weinert navigate the forest of hanging bulbs with a sense of purpose but too little drama.


Wearing a reflective safety vest over a white shirt and pants —  Mr. McCall also designed the costumes — Mr. Bokaer darts throughout the space, performing a sequence of movements with tiny, whipping turns and even an unexpected somersault. There are times when he pauses in front of a bulb, extends an arm and causes it to light up. While this grows gimmicky, Mr. Bokaer, who is never more authoritative than when he’s dancing, burns through his tasks with a tranquil intensity.


During this solo the other four dancers quietly enter the space, which echoes with David Grubbs’s sound design: the stuttering of a 16-millimeter projector. As the dancers move gingerly, pausing in semi-static poses — balancing on one leg or crossing one foot over the other to execute a quarter-turn — their bodies take on a flickering quality under the lights.


Blackouts signal a new kind of movement and create a certain tension; as the dancers edge nearer to the audience, it’s as if they were posing for close-ups. But they don’t have Mr. Bokaer’s charisma, and the movement becomes arid without it.


Throughout “Eclipse” there are instances of beauty, as when a row of bulbs casts an incandescent glow around a dancer’s barely moving form, or when Mr. Bokaer slides against the carpet, with one graceful leg extended, as if he were about to cross home plate. But it’s hardly momentous enough to build a cinematic rendering of choreography.


“Eclipse” exists in a solemnly designed space, where the mood echoes the same order and precision of Mr. Bokaer’s uncluttered, straightforward dances. At the same time, too much of this work revolves around how one moment leads to the next. Perhaps this “Eclipse” is too literal: the design and the dance block out each other.