Choreographer and Producer, Molly Holm, put together a show that swept us through emotions of glee, longing, love, animal and disco nature, and peaceful playfulness. The program included four other choreographers who also took us to Los Angeles, war protest and contagious enthusiasm for dance.

The elegantly dressed Mollly Holm and Michael Rusich welcomed us. Then Molly’s New Jersey students took us into spring with an Isadora Duncan/modern jazz style. The movement and the rose colored tunics worn by the young teens portrayed a lyrical spring celebration completed by New Jersey “feel the heart and hear the song!” gestures. Her work for the Open Floor Dance Company, created in 2005, has the same joyful style. What Ms. Holm set out to do, as she explained in her greeting, was to move, inspire and motivate her full house audience. This was achieved in dancing that was fun, athletic in a post modern style combined with her own twists from jazz and ballet: a “develope” here, a “pirouette” there, smiles and facial expression, a split fall, all in perpetual motion. The solid modern jazz technique was spiced with contact and a sense of improvisation while all the moves were organized into classic theme and variations.

Movement Collective shared the program with Ms. Holm’s Open Door Dance. Their choreographers, Molly Campbell and Renee Ines Gonzales, also gave us the athletic and physically healthy looking lyrical dance based on lyrics of the songs. The movement and gestures followed the “Downtown” hallmark--NOT directly reflecting the words rather than emulate the emotions through the whole body in flowing continuous motion.

The two soloists, Jeffrey Peterson and Mito Honda, gave us very unique and cleanly performed works in their own genres. Peterson was twirling his long, fake, white rifle like a perfect color guard as his text affirmed but he was dressed in a jeans and t-shirt. The purpose driven dance achieved a strong but calm protest of President Bush and war: (I paraphrase) “Twirling is beautiful, the rifle sexy; War is not beautiful; it is ugly.” Ms. Honda dressed in tights, leg warmers and a ruffled tuxedo shirt gave us a floor study that was cat-like and serpentine at the same time. The accompanying house music led to an inside place of someone in the disco era, searching and strong at the same time.

The “video dance” by Alaine Handa, filmed at the UCLA sculpture garden, touched me with its honesty. Dancers posed and rolled around a garden pool and banister of the open air staircase like timeless nymphs and then played hide and seek around a “Monet-like” sculpture of a pregnant woman. The creativity and speaking out of the ‘70’s and the Judson Church crew is alive and refined to gold in the new century. Alaine’s other work, “Everyday,” used the video as a backdrop for the dance.

Most definitely in Molly’s finale, the use of “everyday” balls and a balloon tossed and held and twirled by the four dancers, Leslie Bowen, Sadie Gilbertson, Alaine Handa and Ms. Holm, accompanied by pop, house and ballads from German and Irish lyrical tradition, was most challenging for the dancers. The work itself reminded me of clowns’ antics as they caught and juggled dressed in brightly colored warm up suits. I look forward to seeing Molly working this one out so that the balls and her lyrical style can be even more integrated to match her and her group’s sparkling energy.