Bowen McCauley, on Firm Footing

By Lisa Traiger

Lucy Bowen McCauley is a middle-of-the-road choreographer. Her dances inhabit the space between ballet and modern dance, and that hybrid contemporary style suits her 11 company members, most with résumés long on ballet training. On Tuesday night at the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater, while risks were minimal, the rewards for Bowen McCauley's audience proved sufficient.

Founded just six years ago, Bowen McCauley Dance has become a mainstay on the local dance circuit. It has rapidly graduated from intimate theaters to prestigious venues like the Terrace, which perfectly showcases the chamber-sized troupe, especially with the bonus of live music. On Tuesday's program, a first: The four works were performed entirely to live musical accompaniment, an achievement in the dance world when tight budgets typically mandate fuzzy recordings.

Hesperus, the Arlington-based early-music ensemble, played the 14th-century English, French and Italian compositions that inspired Bowen McCauley's "Terpsichoros," one of the evening's two premieres. The eight dancers in Joan Lynch's blue petal skirts cavorted through the two-dimensional phrases inspired by decorations on ancient Greek vases. Folk patterns and rhythms, groups circling and quick-footed jigs, set the sun-drenched tone, and Robert Sidney gamely frolicked, skirted like his female compatriots, without innuendo but eliciting laughs all the same.

The second new work, "Angel Eyes," segued nicely from the choreographer's rowdy romp, "What'll Ya'ave, Luv?," a trio for three women, their fluted glasses and Henry Purcell's bawdy drinking songs. In "Angel Eyes," Bowen McCauley, in her black gown and elbow-length gloves, exudes the spent demeanor of a sophisticated partygoer who has outlasted the chatter. Then she rolls a shoulder like a caress; longing and ache resonate in the piece, dedicated to Eric Hampton, the late choreographer with whom Bowen McCauley danced for six years.

"Ich Bin Vergnugt Mit Meinem Glucke" received a new look with Tony Cisek's set: filigreed hangings on the corners of the stage and the outline of a rose window. Bach's cantata, sung by Susan Bender accompanied by members of the Washington Bach Consort, was replicated in an old-fashioned movement visualization for eight dancers who echoed the canonic, synchronized and successive patterns. The signature style, with its balletic line skewed by angular and off-kilter gestures, turned-in feet and funny little flicks and catch steps, remains a Bowen McCauley trademark.