A mad swirl of sensuality and color

It’s all about sex: the music, the costumes and the movement. That’s the overriding impression that the ebullient, indefatigable National Ballet of Senegal gave when its 30-person company presented “Kuuyamba” Sunday at El Camino College’s Marsee Auditorium.

The two-hours-plus work tracks the transition from adolescence to adulthood through the music, song and dance of Senegal’s many ethnic groups.

With 11 percussionists creating a kind of pumped-up surround sound (there were also several xylophone-type instruments and the wondrous plucked strings of a kora), the dancers vamped in number after number. Whether madly spinning across the floor in pumpkin-colored grass skirts or leaping like gazelles in poufs of brilliantly hued pantaloons, they had it going on.

Choreographed by Bouly Sonko, even the simplest things -- doing chores like floor-sweeping or water-drawing -- became cause for celebration. Long legs, pliant backs and frenzied footwork punctuated most of the scenes, with acrobatics tossed off with ease. Indeed, one-armed cartwheels, manic tumbling and unfettered bouts of break dancing proved so infectious that several audience members were compelled to go onstage and shimmy themselves.

The group benefited, too, from lush lighting and many costume changes. This troupe is the personification of joy and life itself -- a heady elixir for a troubled world.