Different Stages of Life With Inventive Fagan

Garth Fagan’s dances are sometimes broken into named sections, but audiences may not pay much attention to that device. Instead, they probably just let the many scenes flow by like a panorama and savor them for all the moods and movement invention they offer.

In “Nkanyit” (1997), one of four works presented by Garth Fagan Dance on Saturday night at the Luckman Theatre at Cal State L.A., different facets of life seemed to go by. There were age mates youthfully flinging limbs and gently patting flat-footed tattoos into the floor; men in suits and women in shiny miniskirts making beelines to unknown destinations; and at the center of it all, a mother, father and child. Norwood Pennewell, Sharon Skepple and Natalie Rogers created a gentle, familial world by stretching, balancing and weaving around each other, sometimes touching but more often just basking in each other’s shadows.

Taped African percussion and jazz provided a mellow soundscape for much of “Nkanyit” (an African word for deep respect). Intermittently, musician Gray Mayfield crossed the stage playing saxophone or flute, sending battalions of notes up interesting hills and down again.

“Trips and Trysts” (2000), to taped music by Wynton Marsalis, was full of entrances, exits and various configurations of dancers. The piece seemed to lose shape and momentum near the middle, when couples did variations on social dancing, but it picked up again. Especially strong were solos and moments of stillness.

“Prelude” and “Woza,” which appeared on the company’s program in Irvine last week, also had plenty of still moments when dancers balanced precariously--on half-toe or with one leg held impossibly high. Suffused with the calmness and strong focus of a yoga pose, these feats take on many meanings--ordeal, grace under pressure, contemplation, heroism. And they’re only one facet of Fagan’s inventive fusions.

With torsos and limbs that melt and then resolve into elegant lines and inner rhythms that jolt and flow impeccably, his dancers all seem to know where they’re going. With Fagan, the journey is always interesting.