Dancing To Her Own Beat

When Lucy Bowen McCauley isn't in a ballet studio -- which is most of the time -- you can find her on the elliptical trainer, iPod blasting. Most recently she has been listening to Texas grunge rockers the Toadies, whose slightly twisted lyrics and pounding vibe have captured the dancemaker's imagination.

Bowen McCauley, 49, doesn't look like a headbanging rock-and-roller. And ballet is where the Arlington-based choreographer began her artistic endeavors. As a serious student of the demanding form, she danced on scholarship at the Joffrey Ballet School in New York in the 1980s.

But Bowen McCauley had a secret life outside the studio. On nights and weekends, she was a club rat, haunting rock-and-roll dive bars and Studio 54. Today, as a contemporary choreographer, she uses ballet and its classical music only as a starting point.

"I'm passionate about rock," says Bowen McCauley, who five years ago set her piece "Telemetry" to music by local electronic band Tone. It was so earsplitting that she provided the audience with earplugs.

Earplugs won't be needed this weekend, when her 13-year-old troupe presents a program she fittingly calls "No Holds Barred" at Sidney Harman Hall, showcasing her broad musical tastes, ranging from Handel, Brahms and Beethoven to Broadway duo Kander and Ebb of "Cabaret" fame and, of course, rock-and-roll, represented in a piece she calls "Sneak Peek," choreographed to the Toadies' "Hell Below/Stars Above" and "Little Sin."

Bowen McCauley credits her husband and musician friends for keeping her tuned in to the rock world. By day John McCauley is a computer network engineer, but on nights and weekends he plays rhythm guitar with the band Get Off My Lawn. Their basement is filled with amps, wires and rhythm guitars, the heady beat never far from Bowen McCauley's ears.

But can rock, with its unrepressed abandon, and ballet, with its roots in Western European courtly decorum, really work together? "I think rock and ballet can mix," says Bowen McCauley. "It's often not done well. Sometimes the choreographer doesn't love rock. But I grew up with it. I lived in the rock world and . . . I live with a rocker now."

Bowen McCauley says she hopes to work with the Toadies one day, her dancers sharing the stage with the musicians. As for her rock playlist? It's vast, including Green Day, Radiohead, Elvis Costello, Marshall Crenshaw, Foo Fighters, Cheap Trick, Joan Jett, Husker Du and the Replacements. Clearly, for Bowen McCauley, rock-and-roll is here to stay.

"Above all else, I do like it loud. I'll probably go deaf because I was always up front with the monitors and speakers."

Bowen McCauley Dance Sidney Harman Hall, 610 F St. NW. 202-547-1122. http://www.bmdc.org. Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. $35-$45.