Los Angeles Festival : NO-FRILLS SUSAN MARSHALL DANCING

Out of the purity and rigor of postmodern structuralism, Susan Marshall’s generation of American choreographers has shaped a new expressive style--one based on looking deeply at our culture for those prevalent patterns of action that reveal hidden personal or social priorities.

In Marshall’s uneven but always engaging five-part program at the Japan America Theatre on Wednesday, the most familiar behavioral minutiae became enlarged into whole-body statements, developed into formal motifs (usually through repetition), varied, combined and then fitted into larger movement designs without ever losing the potent sense of character analysis at the root of her method.

This was high-tech, no-frills dance-drama--each work arranged architecturally to show you exactly what you needed to see with maximum clarity and candor.

In the broadly satiric “Arena,” for Marshall’s full, fine six-member company, a series of inventively reconceived ballroom dances yielded revelations about sexism--with Marshall exposing commonplace social dancing as a matrix for the oppression of women.

Similarly, the initially jocular, increasingly analytical “Opening Gambits” depicted a young girl (Kathy Casey) fluctuating between involvement with her obsessively manipulative brother (Guillermo Resto) and interest in a clever friend (Eileen Thomas).

In each case, the sense of competition and relationships developed through contrasting and sometimes overlapping movement styles and the dancing retained a strong connection to its source idiom (social dancing, playground games).

Even more grounded in realistic gesture, the episodic “Ward” (with Thomas and Jackie Goodrich) detailed a shift between flailing wildness and clenched control, stifling togetherness and threatening isolation. The title encouraged us to consider the duet an exploration of the symbiotic link between a violent patient and her guard or nurse. However Marshall introduced too many deliberate discontinuities and reversals for the work to be reduced to a mere case history.

Best of all: “Kin” and “Arms,” two duets in which Marshall’s ability to fuse movement and emotion achieved an extraordinary economy and eloquence. In “Kin” (with Casey and Thomas), Marshall conveyed the concept of relationship through a sophisticated use of shared weight, common motifs, convivial unisons.

“Arms” (with Marshall and Ar thur Armijo) reflected fluctuating emotional states through cycles of rapid upper-body motion--caressing arms, protective arms, threatening arms, defiant arms--ending in a remarkable suggestion of (or yearning for) winged escape.

If much of her program suggested Marshall’s potential without quite confirming her reputation, these two works established her mastery unmistakably. She is clearly a choreographer of rare creative insight and intelligence.