Leine & Roebana, an Engaging Dutch Treat

As the audience filed in to see Leine & Roebana's performance of "Traces," the dancers were already onstage, dressed in black and walking slowly and aimlessly on a stark white dance floor. Then, without the usual preparatory warnings of dimming house lights or an announcement to silence cellphones, there was an instant blackout and a grating cacophony for several seconds. This startling jolt was a fitting opener for an evening in which the surprising and unpredictable choreography kept viewers on the edge of their seats.

In its performance Sunday at Dance Place, the Netherlands-based troupe masterfully executed the demanding movement idiom that choreographers Andrea Leine and Harijono Roebana created. They could be limply flailing one moment and in the next jumping with the precise technique and buoyancy of a ballet dancer. Whether through a spastic convulsion that somehow spiraled into a controlled pirouette or a delicate graze of the pinky finger against the body, the dancers were convincing and engaging. Most of the time they wore blank, vacant facial expressions, so emotions and ideas were conveyed entirely by their bodies.

The score for this work incorporated opera, country music and piano solos, as well as noises that sounded like zaps of electricity and ringing alarm clocks. Because the piece was set up as a series of vignettes rather than one continuous work, this hodgepodge managed to be effective.

-- Sarah Halzack