SENSITIVITY RESIDES ON BLACKSTREET

Airborne, the dancers defy gravity, leaping and spinning in abandon to the music of Ravel--and Stevie Wonder.

Showing appreciation for such virtuosity, audience members applaud, putting down teddy bears and dolls to do so.

This is no ordinary troupe. Each dancer is only two feet tall, with impossibly attenuated limbs and exaggerated features. All are members of the Blackstreet U.S.A. Puppet Theatre, performing for children each weekend under the guidance of puppeteer Gary Jones.

The theater is small, high-ceilinged and painted white, the stage a low platform close to two rows of folding chairs. Jones, a small, light-voiced, lithe man in black, works alone, seating the audience, operating the spotlight and recorded music, and then performing, manipulating one puppet at a time.

He captures his young viewers from the start with a recalcitrant but endearing puppet named Purity, a tangle-haired hipster who wants to bop to rock ‘n’ roll, period. Jones coaxes her into the audience, where one little girl is persuaded to brush Purity’s long hair.

Jones, kneeling on the floor, works Purity’s long arms on rods, using a high voice to speak for her. The children ignore him, talking directly to the puppet as she asks them their names and ages and exchanges gentle banter.

The show that follows--five short stories from Ravel’s “Mother Goose Suite” and an original fable called “The Little Girl Who Loved to Dance,” takes Jones and his puppets away from the audience, and the proximity is missed, but the works themselves have a wistful delicacy.

Here, Jones is not just puppeteer, but a member of the cast, graceful and balletic. His puppet partners receive loving, respectful treatment, and a kiss for a job well done.

Jones gives his puppets sensitivities that children can relate to. In the “Beauty and the Beast” segment of the Ravel work, the Beast is played by Jones’ foot. When Beauty discovers the Beast’s true identity, she feels foolish, and sulks, before allowing Jones to win her over again.

His “Little Girl Who Loved to Dance” is warmly laced with simple poetry--a dancer moves “like the floating clouds,” a “tall lady” does a dance of “harmony and rapture” and at the end, the little girl “danced home all the way, into her mommy and daddy’s arms.”

The affection Jones extends to his creations reaches out to the audience as well. It’s a good feeling.

Performances continue at 4619 W. Washington Blvd. on Fridays at 10:30 a.m., Saturdays at 2 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. (213) 936-6091.