Time and reality were pleasantly deconstructed at Dance Theatre Workshop last Thursday night, during a double bill shared by two young choreographers: Malinda Allen and Jennie MaryTai Liu. Deconstruction as an artistic modus operandi is what makes postmodern dance and so-called experimental theater go ’round – deconstruction of linear narrative logic, of the traditional hierarchies of placement on the stage, of homogenous sound elements in favor of assemblage. I say “so-called” experimental theater because by now deconstruction has become almost an orthodoxy of its own. Yet rejecting as it does the easiest ways for an audience to grasp meanings and intent it does retain the right to be called experimental.

Ms. Allen’s piece paid tribute to the progenitor of deconstruction himself, Albert Einstein. Her “Einstein’s Dreams” is inspired by Alan Lightman’s book of the same name, which conjectures dreams Einstein might have had concerning ways of conceptualizing time as he groped toward the theory of relativity. This is a felicitous subject for a theatrical piece, since time, of course, is virtually a theme in every theatrical project, time seemingly compressed, prolonged for dramatic or experiential effect.

In Ms. Allen’s work, three backlit panels were continuously and dexterously rearranged by designer Adrian Clark to frame vignettes suggesting cycles of life, advances and regressions, and stability contrasted to flux. It is no surprise in this context to find that Einstein himself seems to be personified by a woman.

The performers are animated by the striking of a clock, ambient sounds, and chalk scribbling equations on a blackboard. Ms. Allen herself appears at the head of the stairs leading down the tiers of DTW seats, hooking her legs in the handrails and posing aloft.

The piece builds toward a eureka moment by Einstein, as Ms. Allen sits contemplating, center stage. The dancers run back and forth like molecules ricocheting as squares of stage space lit momentarily like epiphanies. Now Einstein is ready to commit his theory to paper. “Could you type something for me?” she asks her assistant, who responds, “Certainly.” The two then engage in some contact improvisation type tumbling as they speak.

Ms. Liu’s “Learning in Lower Animals” was inspired by a 1968 textbook of that name, and it posits shared patterns of communication in the human and animal kingdoms. Much of the actions seem to be located in a suburban patio; several women are dressed identically in headbands and cheerleader skirts, functioning as Greek chorus or mini corps de ballet. But the performance becomes something of an antiphonic three-ring circus as snatches of speech are splintered and exchanged among three separate groups as well as individual participants within those groups. There are showdowns, outbursts of familial and existential angst. But social behavior involves communal cooperation as well as friction, demonstrated here when the performers mime taking a bite out of something and passing it along in a tribal circle.

Ms. Liu’s traffic in anomie and oppositional stances found a simple and graphically potent expression in her closing tableau. Half of her performing ensemble stands balletically turned out while their counterparts across the stage are rooted in a turned-in position.

Both “Einstein’s Dreams” and “Learning in Lower Animals” were short, each about a half-hour, which meant that their considerable obscurities were intriguing rather than tiring. The dancers are listed as collaborators, and undoubtedly they are, and yet clearly someone was in charge of the two pieces. Both Ms. Allen and Ms. Liu demonstrated their ability to take charge.