Soul-baring, daring set this troupe apart

Dancer-choreographer Hae Kyung Lee, clad in a scarlet satin slip onstage at Cal State L.A.’s State Playhouse on Friday night, offered alternating depictions of rampant ecstasy and butoh-like inevitability in a ferocious performance of beating-heart virtuosity. Her solo was one of three premieres in a concert titled “Salm” -- Korean for “daily life.” The other works were performed by her 15-year-old locally based troupe, Hae Kyung Lee and Dancers.

The set, designed by Chris Acebo and Lee -- suspended pieces of white fabric suggestive of teardrops executed by Dali -- provided a perfect backdrop for Lee’s austere choreography. But it was her 10-minute solo, “Revolution,” a showcase of floating arms, balancing poses and crouches, that packed the most artistic wallop.

The number, akin to a glimpse into someone’s most private, naked thoughts, was danced to a sublime score (on tape) by Robert Een: elegiac cello laced with hymn-like vocals, guitars and accordion. Lee, with her hair in a Louise Brooks bob, her skin pale and her mouth a slash of red lipstick, moved through pools of light (designed by Arnold Sampson) as if struggling to set herself free.

She rose on arched feet, her hands seeming to hover on watery swells, before plunging into a succession of head-whipping turns.

In this portrait of resolve, Lee, eyes closed, revealed a universe beyond the mundane, one where motion and truth coalesce in the thrill of the moment.

In “Chaos,” the company gave new meaning to the notion of crash-and-burn. Accompanied by Steve Moshier’s high-tech taped track, this 15-minute piece featured the dancers -- Kishisa Ross, Miguel Olvera, Claudia Lopez, Yvette Alawerdijian, Julio Moran and Demian Willette -- hurling themselves into the air like flailing flying fish before thwack-flopping to the ground.

Sporting shredded muslin jumpsuits with an institutional vibe, the dancers often moved in unison, their lemming-like behavior either a fearless display of nonchalance or one of resignation: Whether walking backward, quivering or sliding across the floor on their abdomens, they kept returning to the unrelenting body-slamming -- hope in a hopeless world.

At 30 minutes, “Rebirth,” also set to Een’s compelling string-based sounds (with nods to Ravel’s “Bolero”), featured the troupe in an astonishing array of authoritative lifts and lunges. Dressed in flesh-colored short unitards, these were spiritual warriors, sometimes swanning, sometimes spinning, always questing -- for redemption and a kind of underlying calm that can be found at the root of Lee’s limits-testing choreography.