On Friday night at the Pittsburgh High School for the Creative and Performing Arts, Ronald K. Brown/Evidence gave the audience a generous dose of reality -- not in the vein of the television trend, but with the fact that dance can be as densely imaginative and joyously uplifting as this company.

The second in the African American Cultural Center's performing arts series this year, Brown and his Evidence are at the forefront of a dance surge by black artists in this country. Like the rest, which include Philadelphia's Rennie Harris, Dwight Rhoden and AACC's upcoming concert with Ralph Lemon this spring, there was a deep, elegant bow to ancestors, something that infused a hypnotic wellspring of movement.

Brown's inspiration came from West Africa communal clusters voraciously tapping polyrhythmic patterns that erupted into airborne limbs. His signature vocabulary held true throughout the slipping hiccup that can result in a fall to the floor, the arching twist of a backward spiral, wrists seemingly bound behind the back, and the leap that propels the dancers miraculously and fully into space.

It's not dance for the faint of heart. Those signatures are written into phrasing of inordinate complexity and underscored by undulating bodies. It takes a focused eye to follow it all with these magnificent dancers, and they do move on another plane, somehow pulsing in textbook unison. I do not believe that anyone has constructed a more thrilling canonic phrase than Brown.

There he was, dancing in the midst of his gloriously disciplined company, which offered three pieces that appealed not only to heritage, but to the spirit and to the future.

"Upside Down" began the program with community facing the inevitability of death within the cycle of life. With just a hint of what is to come, a fallen member tried to blend with movement centered around the Earth, dancers' heads gazing down, hands kneading the dirt.

Like the other works, the dance was peppered with solos, strikingly resembling juicy jazz riffs. Near the end, though, the fallen member bent backward in supplication. As the men pressed slowly across the stage, the women caught him for the final time and lifted him to the heavens.

But the focal point was on "Come Ye," a work co-commissioned by AACC, inspired by the Nina Simone song and carried on in her spirit. Beginning as "Upside Down" did, from a simple and straightforward line, the dancers tumbled forward to embrace the audience in their quest. By the middle they had transformed themselves into denim-clad soldiers of this peace-keeping but infectious "Revolution," filtering military moves among the rest. With Martin Luther King, Gandhi and others watching their backs on film, they stewed and bubbled. At times it threatened to spin out of control, but this army was, at the end, victorious as the dancers raised their arms to the sky.

"Grace" concluded the program with a transformation of another kind, tracing the elevation of the spirit. Even when the music was more tranquil, the dance never paused to breathe fully, something that worked against the initial purpose. Brown was relentless, never giving in, always looking out, and for that we can, for now, be grateful.