Other highlights included strong performances by San Diego's Butterworth Dance Company, whose Pulse, although a bit static in its movement, showcased some novel partner work; Anandha Ray's Beyond the Picket Fence for Moving Arts Dance was a fluid and graceful study in duo choreography, recognizing that how dancers come down from a lift is just as important as how they go up; and "Rapid Eye Movement," an excerpt from Kelly Roth & Dancers' Lehi's Dream 2006, featured a bright and charming Masami Kadota, who captivated the audience with her sheer joy of dancing.
The pacing was different each evening. Friday was more anguished, introspective and self-conscious, and mostly choreographed to trance-inducing scores, whereas the more successful Saturday program achieved a balance between angst and dance-as-joy. Saturday also featured some humor, including Concert Dance Company's Hernaeus & Taphea, a loving send-up of dance conventions. Plagued by a leering satyr, women in Greek robes carried plastic water jugs (in place of Grecian urns) to ponds constructed of wading pools. Because the performers trusted the tight choreography and didn't ham it up, the laughs came in the right places.
The festival closed with its most ambitious work, Groves, by CCSN's Concert Dance Company. A large ensemble work by Kelly Roth to a percussive score by William Kraft, this homage to the Louis/Nikolais tradition challenged the dancers to work within the lyrical abstract framework as a cohesive unit. They succeeded.