Guests Get Their Feet Wet. (Reviews: National).

GUESTS GET THEIR FEET WET WASHASHORE DANCE ENSEMBLE TILDEN ARTS CENTER, CAPE COD COMMUNITY COLLEGE WEST BARNSTABLE, MASSACHUSETTS AUGUST 3-5, 2001

WashAshore Dance Ensemble (WADE), the former resident professional company of Massachusetts's Studio 878, is a nonprofit collective of international dancers who've been invited to perform in Cape Cod for three summer seasons (hence "WashAshore"). This year's lineup included dancers from Britain's Birmingham Royal Ballet, the Stuttgart Ballet, Susan Marshall & Company, Columbia City Ballet, and the Ballet du Grand Theatre de Geneve, as well as six apprentices from Studio 878. Founders Catherine Batcheller and Joseph Cipolla, principals with the Birmingham Royal Ballet, also direct Studio 878's ballet program.

The company, equipped with repertoire works that participants brought along, performed a program of seven pieces to taped music. Royston Maldoom's Doina, set to hauntingly beautiful flute music and inspired by the image of families who lose loved ones at sea, opened the program. It featured former Dance Theatre of Harlem principal Christina Johnson and Asier Uriagereka (both now dance with the Ballet du Grand Theatre de Geneve), and six capable apprentices. Costumed in hooded, mesh unitards designed by Alisa Berk, their movement was mostly gestural with a strong diagonal orientation. The piece really belonged to Johnson, with her unfailing focus and singular torso strength.

The first pas de deux on the program, from Don Quixote, featured Batcheller and Norbert Nirewicz (a former principal with the Polish National Theater now dancing with Columbia City Ballet). Their display of technical bravura--a study in balance and strength--did not disappoint.

Susan Marshall & Company dancers Mark DeChiazza and Kristin Hollinsworth danced Cherylyn Lavagnino's pas de trois Chapel Song with Uriagereka. This delicate piece, with its intricate footwork, was danced especially well by the men.

The U.S. premiere of Ivan Cavallari's Per Sonja combined the music of Samuel Barber with graphic arts and gestural movement. Performed by WADE newcomers Bridget Breiner and Douglas Lee of the Stuttgart Ballet, the piece was a modernist exploration in wit and emotion. Each dancer, wearing a white unitard, dipped a brush into pots of paint and drew on each other separately and then simultaneously. On a white screen, he outlined her figure, and she his; they removed their clothes and faded into the screen, ending their tandem narratives with a decidedly postmodern twist. The daring piece featured frantic gestures danced with great intensity.

The third pas de deux on the program was William Forsythe's sensual In the middle, somewhat elevated, set to Thom Willems's explosive electronic score and danced by company directors Batcheller and Cipolla. The expansive music demands sharp and staccato off-balance movement from the torso as well as the hips. Batcheller and Cipolla danced the piece with the requisite power and raw energy.

The final pas de deux on the program, from John Cranko's Romeo and Juliet, was danced by a very self-assured Breiner and Lee. The dancers' near-perfect timing helped to create some of the most exciting moments in the program imbued with the yearning of youth, the emotions of adolescence, and the exuberance of people in love.

The program closed with Group Therapy, a satiric look at the contemporary psychotherapist's office, choreographed by Harrison McEldowney of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. WADE is the only other company granted the rights to perform the dance. Jennifer Chipman, who dances with Suzanne Farrell, joined seven other company members to dance this piece about the volatile nature of relationships. The various couplings showcased the different styles and choreographic experiences of the group.

Timing, as one might expect in a Hubbard Street piece, is all-important, from kicks to lifts to hand flicks. WADE performed it impeccably, with the contemporary dancers moving gracefully to a waltz melody, Euro-classicists clambering on top of each other to rhythm and blues riffs, and prima-ballerinas dancing to swing tunes.

This diverse company, like a living art gallery with an international collection, speaks the different languages of dance well, particularly in a piece like Group Therapy. Future performances promise a repertoire with a distinct New England flavor (including, perhaps, Drosselmeyer dressed as a sea captain). Much of the funding, meanwhile, comes from the other side of the Atlantic--from arts councils in England, supplementing grants and private donations from the U.S.