STRONG SHOWING FROM ACROBATIC DIAVOLO DANCERS.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

Welcome to the gravity-defying, teeming-anthill school of performance art.

A swarm of dancers (OK, only 10, but it feels like more) emerge out of a tall and rather simple-looking wooden staircase. Some come from behind and ski their way down. Others pop out from openings on individual steps or on the sides. They carry umbrellas, flowers, a suitcase, an occasional article of clothing. They roll and plummet, dash and leap into - fortunately - waiting arms. Ultimately, a formal waltz becomes a kind of free for all.

And this is only the first segment, fittingly titled ``Tete en L'Air'' (Head in the Clouds).

Los Angeles' own Diavolo, the brainchild (or should I say ``limbchild'') of French choreographer Jacques Heim, may fall under the family-friendly rubric of UCLA Live's 2004-05 season (the group's performance continues through this weekend at the Freud Playhouse), but children are more likely to be straight-up entertained than thoroughly dazzled. And hopefully, at curtain's end, they won't be pestering mom and dad to purchase a compartment-layered staircase or a giant hamster wheel allowing them to duplicate the Diavolo feats.

Expert balance and fully extended, free-falling leaps appear to be signature maneuvers. There's much artful diving that ends in a performer vaulting over another performer and ending up prostrate on a step or splayed out against a moving piece of scenery. In the segments following ``Tete en L'Air,'' the performers bring out pie-shaped wedges, which are assembled into a huge traveling wheel.

``Trajectoire,'' the show's final segment, features an enormous bowl- shaped apparatus that rocks back and forth, like a see-saw, allowing performers to demonstrate balance and agility. When the thing pitches backward, out of audience view, dancers can scramble on and off, appearing and disappearing to create a kind of illusion. (All three segments, by the way, originated on L.A. stages).

Diavolo's performance, which runs about 105 minutes, is often arresting if not quite magical. The ``don't try this at home'' quotient is, of course, fully applicable.

Evan Henerson, [phone]

evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com

DIAVOLO - Three stars

Where: Freud Playhouse, in Macgowan Hall on the UCLA campus, Westwood.

When: 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 7 p.m. Sunday; through Sunday.

Tickets: $20 to $45. [phone] or www.uclalive.org.

In a nutshell: Cool to watch, particularly for the gymnastically inclined.