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Saturday, January 11, 2003

By Jane Vranish, Post-Gazette Dance Critic

"I want the audience to feel the fusion," says Maria Caruso of her fledgling contemporary dance company, Bodiography. Dance has been moving toward that end, a grand mishmash where ballet dancers get down and dirty, modern dancers conquer high extensions and jazz dancers explore improvisation.

	"Envisage" WHERE: Bodiography at the Byham Theater, Downtown. WHEN: 8 tonight. TICKETS: $22-$36; 412-456-6666.

Some artists train for it all, but most companies concentrate on one signature style. Caruso wants to showcase various vocabularies side by side, not only solid blocks of jazz juxtaposed with ballet, but a also modern dancer supporting a ballerina en pointe in arabesque.

It will all come to a head this weekend at the Byham Theaterwhen the 22-year-old choreographer will present her full-length abstract ballet, "Envisage," based on the French composer Claude Debussy.

But where Debussy concocted shimmering colors with musical instruments, Caruso will present an edgy portrait called "Seduction of Debussy" with music by the legendary electronic group Art of Noise.

Modern dancer Peter Bouchet will play the composer, with Caruso portraying the score. "[Debussy's] music is so rich and so dense, just like my movement," Caruso says. "One of my students said that it defied gravity."

Voiceovers will supply facts on the composer's life with "a modern day spin," according to Caruso. "We'll show images of what he was thinking about, the colors ..."

She will also showcase "so many different bodies, so many different styles." But that's not an issue with Caruso. "It's about the passion inside ... about the proficiency of technique."

Caruso celebrates the "beauty of their physique," preferring not to place limitations on her dancers, something she encountered while a student at the University of Florida dance department. Undaunted, she went to New York, where she studied with Dance Theatre of Harlem and taught at Ballet Academy East.

She also nurtured a desire to choreograph and founded Bodiography there, forming a company of young professionals who had graduated from college with a major in dance. With the move to Pittsburgh, Caruso's company has a split identity. She regularly travels between New York and Pittsburgh and will feature dancers from both cities in "Envisage."

Caruso tells her dancers to "love who you are" and tries to maintain a philosophical balance in the company despite the geographical divide. They will pull together -- all styles, all body types, all movements -- for "Envisage," which Caruso calls "a feel-good ballet, one that will energize the audience."

Jane Vranish is a freelance dance and music critic.