La Compagnie Nomades - le Loft Vevey.

All six dancers of the troupe appeared in every piece on the program presented by the Swiss Compagnie Nomades - le Loft Vevey. Rather than seeing three pas de six, though, one had the impression of watching the tenants in a small apartment house pursue their lives and, on occasion, interact as a community. Body types varied, but all the performers possessed strong technique. Jointly, they sometimes achieved virtuosity.

Concept dominated two shorter pieces, Philippe Trehet's D'Eux and Philippe Lizon's Bidon donc. in the Trehet piece, three male-female pairs come to seem like a single couple despite differences of character and degrees of attraction. Partnering maneuvers form the choreographic substance. in the Lizon work, a group of skipping local yokels manages to produce, not without lots of doubt, one permanent couple. In both dances, movement became predictable once the proceedings were set.

Euskara, by Serge Campardon, who codirects Nomades with Florence Faure, was full of surprises. Motifs of leave-taking and looking forward emerged in response to folk music intermingled with evocative sounds. Tightly controlled Basque steps on demipointe and dart-throwing gestures, reminiscent of the Old World, were transformed into freer jumps and baseball pitches learned in the New World. To follow the course of this dance about emigration (an apt theme for a troupe named Nomades) proved an adventure.

Nomades's directors used to perform with Maurice Bejart. Their present company - Kathy Thompson, Nadine Fuchs, Miyuki Sato, David Rodrigo, Angelo Dell, lacono, and Marco Delgado - is scrupulously balanced by gender and race.