Jubilation! Dances at El Camino College

Kevin Jeff, founder and artistic director of the Brooklyn-based Jubilation! Dance Company, can make works of fierce, dramatic punch and searing power or display pieces that rather slickly emphasize jazz and modern dance moves.

“Junto,” given locally for the first time by the company at Marsee Auditorium, El Camino College, on Saturday is one of the latter.

Danced to a Brazilian-flavored jazz score by Pat Metheny, “Junto” showcased the 10-member company in high-powered synchronous group choreography, interspersed with soloists or clusters of dancers who emerged only to dissolve back into the group.

The mood was bright, playful and upbeat. The dancers were strong and vital. The work was lightweight.

But Jeff’s “Flack” was a tough, tense, uncompromising, unsentimental response to the evocative music of Roberta Flack, Quincy Jones and Donny Hathaway.

Elana Anderson and Denise De Sousa had powerful solos, and the trio of men--Aaron Dugger, Darius Grandisson and especially Musafa Ogundada--evoked poignancy.

Here, as if they were Ninjas of the dance, the company members began their moves with deep gasps and lunges from the solar plexus, and the effect was visceral and electrifying.

“Dedication” also contained this kind of committed movement, offering an especially haunting duo by Ogundada and Grandisson. But Jeff was content to finish the work with a high-energy, all-purpose jazz romp that couldn’t bear the symbolic weight of renewal it was meant to carry.

“Gula Matari,” too, despite challenging partnering, offered mostly jazz flash.