Anne Herman

The UAA Dance Ensemble mixed things up in its "New Dances 2012" concert. The college-aged performers have been known over the years for their contemporary, even post-modern, take on this art. Symbolism -- verbal and kinetic -- runs through much of their past works.

A flashy guy, a girl with a golden voice, a goofy sidekick, lots of dancing and singing: Put them all together and you've got a movie -- and "Singin' in the Rain" has it all.

If there was a theme to the UAA Dance Ensemble concert Thursday night, it was the journey from chaos to peace, from struggle to surrender. The one-hour performance at the Harper Studio Theatre had works by three choreographers whose interpretation of this journey was individual.

In the end, it's all about relationships: how we gather and part from one another, how we listen to, love, play with and anger each other.

A friend and I went "Off to See the Wizard" Tuesday night. We followed "The Yellow Brick Road," met flying monkeys, Jitterbugs, some "Munchkins" and a couple of witches. We ended up in the fabled Emerald City of Oz. Well, almost anyway.

"New Dances 2010" took to the streets in its Thursday night opener. The UAA Dance Ensemble, together with choreographers old and new, added urban dance styles and ideas -- from tap to jazz to tribal fusion dance -- to spice up a creative stew of movements that were edgy, curious, expansive and, in a word, eclectic.

A small, enthusiastic audience carried the Dance Spectrum Alaska dancers through a mediocre performance Friday evening at the Discovery Theater. The performers struggled through much of the first half of the concert, weakening what in some cases could have been interesting works.

Bend the truth, manipulate the media, flash some thigh and you've got it made -- for 15 minutes at least. "Chicago, the Musical" stormed into town Tuesday, promising sex, murder, lies and more sex. And the show delivered the goods, with attitude and flash.

Alaska Dance Theatre's Winter Repertory Concert is usually the company's biggest performance, the one where they pull out all the creative stops. This year the Repertory Concert was more ADT-Lite than anything else. Friday's production at the Discovery Theatre was more conventional than audiences have seen in awhile.

Alaska Dance Theatre presented an evening of original works Saturday at the Alice Bassler Sullivan Theater. "On the Verge" featured dances created by some of the company's instructors and local guests in an hour-long display of their talents.

Exploration is the name of the game for contemporary dance companies like Momentum Dance Collective. Choreographers and performers launch themselves into little-charted territory to see what they can discover and use in crafting a dance.

A woman in white vomits her red intestines and another convulses; two vacant-eyed men push each other and a woman around like lifeless dolls. These were some of the images blasted on the mind's eye by UAA's "New Dances 2009" concert Friday night in the Mainstage Theatre.

Since time immemorial men have beaten women -- with their fists and their words -- who dared to be themselves. These "fallen women" who questioned and defied society were branded whores and liars, murderesses and the work of Satan.

Alumni, guest artists and current company members helped Dance Spectrum Alaska mark its 20th anniversary this weekend, showcasing contemporary dance, ballet and jazz.