Steps to Enlightenment : Spiritual Message Pervades Choreographer Todd Williams’ Work Premiering Tonight

Choreographer Todd Williams doesn’t shy from heavy subject matter.

“I’m talking about expansion and becoming one with the infinite,” he says, discussing the gist of his latest work. “By realizing that your soul is a perfect reflection of God or cosmic consciousness, you’re able to unite your soul with that consciousness.”

Williams’ musical taste is no less ambitious. His new dance will be performed to a section of one of the great choral works of all time, Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis.”

Before beginning to choreograph this work, “I thought I wouldn’t be really ready to do it,” says the 23-year-old Williams. “I thought I should really wait until I have more experience and the right dancers. But then I realized that you never really have the right time and the right dancers and the right circumstances, and I felt inwardly prompted to do it. And I knew that even if it didn’t turn out exactly the way I wanted it to, it would be a start and I could keep working on it.”

Williams has been developing his untitled modern ballet through Ballet Pacifica’s fifth annual Pacifica Choreographic Project, which commissions four new pieces each summer. His piece will be performed tonight at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa along with other works in progress by fellow project participants Ginger Thatcher of New York (as is Williams), Trey McIntyre of Houston and Lucinda Hughey of Montreal. The program is co-sponsored by UC Irvine.

Williams, a former New York City Ballet dancer, said has been developing his spiritual life since adolescence. At 14, he read “The Autobiography of a Yogi” written by Paramahansa Yogananda, an East Indian who brought his yoga philosophy to the West and founded the Self-Realization Fellowship in 1920.

“Most people think of yoga as just postures,” he said. “But this is more along the lines of meditation techniques and teachings on how to live your life. I knew right away that this was my path and my guru and the teachings I wanted to follow.”

The struggle to know the divine is at the heart of the choreographer’s new piece.

“It’s not easy to try to live a spiritual life,” said Williams, who still dances and practices yoga and meditation daily, “when most people are not seeking God or anything but material things.”

Williams was born in Hollywood and raised in the San Fernando Valley and danced with NYCB from 1990-94. He quit, he said, because he felt limited by the troupe’s Balanchine-dominated repertory and wanted “more freedom in movement.”

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Out on his own, he took classes with such modern choreographers as Merce Cunningham and performed works by dancers from modern troupes led by Paul Taylor and David Parsons, among others. He’s been choreographing for the past five years for such organizations as Ballet Inc., a small, independent New York group founded to give emerging choreographers a showcase.

“I’m trying to create my own style,” he said, “but I’m drawing upon everything I’ve ever seen and done--all the Balanchine and [Jerome] Robbins [NYCB’s secondary choreographer] and Taylor and Cunningham and [Martha] Graham. I love Jiri Kylian’s and Mark Morris’ work too.”

His latest work, for three women and two men in bare feet, is set to the 15-minute Sanctus (holy) section of “Missa Solemnis.”

“It lends itself to dance more than the other sections,” Williams said, “because there are many places where there isn’t a lot of choral work. Also, it’s the most spiritual part of the Mass. I know that sounds strange, but it sounds divinely inspired. When I listen to it, I feel very uplifted. I think Beethoven put a lot of soul into what he was doing.”

Williams tried to convey his message through movement, rather than facial expression, he said. He keeps dancers close to the ground, for instance, to symbolize the “very low sphere, the mundane,” he said.

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In a section involving the concept of trust, one dancer falls into another’s arms--and must literally trust that he’ll be caught.

In rehearsal, Williams said, “the dancers were very controlled, doing the movements correctly but not really trusting each other, and I said, ‘You’ve got to just fall and let him catch you.’ So I’m not just making it an emotional thing where someone looks like they have to trust someone, I’m making it an actual physical thing where they have to trust each other to make the steps work.”

Williams hopes his piece works with the audience.

“It represents my own struggles in the world, but also it’s universal because we all have the struggle.”

* Ballet Pacifica presents new “Works in Progress” by four choreographers tonight at South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. 8 p.m. A discussion with the choreographers follows the performance. $5. (714) 642-9275.