UAA Dance Ensemble: Old publicity photo. This particular pose wasn't part of the opening night show.
Two complex and contrasting pieces bookend the showcase of new choreography presented by the University of Alaska Anchorage Dance Ensemble this month.

Leslie Kimiko Ward’s “iTouch, 5 meditations on interdependence” suggested narratives on how contemporary America keeps up a guard regarding physical contact. It opened with the company walking and talking on beeping cell phones then cut to a scene where a man and two women flirted, clung or dismissed one another as a fourth dancer flitted behind them delivering distracting taps on the back — I thought of Cupid — while others sat on the sides with laptop computers.

The third scene followed a crowd in an elevator. The fourth was a non-narrative round dance that was rather lovely; and maybe the meditations should have stopped there. The short coda depicted in mime an elderly woman escorted to a seat and having her hair adjusted. It didn’t seem to fit either the flow or proportions of what preceded it.
UAA Dance Ensemble: New publicity photo by costume designer Diesel X. However, this pose and costume were also not seen on opening night and the image was flipped 90 degrees from the actual position of the models.

“Tracing Graphite Boundaries,” by Brian Jeffery baffled some in the light opening night house — about 40 people in the 60 seats of the Harper Studio Theatre, arranged facing each other like the bleachers at a tennis court. But I had to admire the attempt to balance formal structure with exuberant expression. The opening action, with a line of dancers racing to mid-space and back as if playing some kind of relay game, was one of many elements recapitulated later on. Others found it merely redundant. Some of Jeffery’s stock moves — dancers pacing or running without doing much more than filling time, or a series of “touch myself” gestures — felt superfluous.

But “Graphite” had a greater sense of tension and release than anything else on the program. For example, at the end of a pas de deux with the rest of the group watching from the sidelines, a second man steps into the center light. A rival? Not quite. The two men stand shoulder to shoulder and catch the woman together; as she hits their arms, the rest of the dancers suddenly explode into the scene.

While the eight student dancers were athletic, I had to wonder whether they were under-rehearsed. Individual timing often appeared to trump ensemble precision. The lighting by Adam Klein, mainly a space-filling rectangle with a circle of brightness in the center, emphasized the geometric symmetry of many of the deployments.

Three solo works, performed by their choreographers, occupied the middle of the hour-long show. Stephanie Wonchala’s “Sum of Choices” addressed decisions and consequences, mostly bad or at least impassioned, judging from the long red dress she wore. Her moves — choking or yanking — suggested physical abuse.

“Aqua” by Heather Richardson featured more fluid moves, including some very nice evocations, especially toward the end, which unfolded after the music and water sound effects had ceased.

Ward’s “On the rocks” seemed to be the biggest crowd pleaser, drawing laughter as she imitated a jolly and lascivious drunk, hands wagging in the air, hips lurching in comic exaggeration. I felt a bit uncomfortable, however, seeing a serious and sometimes fatal problem treated frivolously. Maybe Ward did, too; she ended with the smile off her face, crumpled in a corner as she came down from the high.

The program will be repeated at 8 p.m. Thurs.-Sat. and 6 p.m. Sun. through Nov. 15 at the Harper Studio Theatre in the UAA Fine Arts Building. Tickets are $12 for general admission, available at 786-4849.

Find Mike Dunham online at adn.com/contact/mdunham or call 257-4332.