Abstract interactions

Whimsical, intuitive and propelled by gestures rather than steps, the three-member, Copenhagen-based Rosenzweig ensemble seemed to be aiming for a kind of postmodern character dancing with its four-part program in the multidisciplinary “Zeitgeist” series at the Skirball Cultural Center on Wednesday.

In “Grejs,” for instance, Fernanda Echenique appeared to conjure the identically dressed Hagit Rosenzweig out of memory, interacting with her until being left alone again. The power structure of their relationship emerged through a repeated motif of Echenique bending forward and bracing herself against the floor while Rosenzweig sat on her back.

However, their restless, semaphoric movement vocabulary remained the same, and each periodically covered her face with one hand while feeling through the air with the other, as if blind. A tape collage (vocals, bells, piano) and lighting that divided the stage into sharp-edged geometric islands supported the structural discontinuities of the duet, but at heart, “Grejs” examined Echenique’s feelings for her dominant partner.

Choreographer Ari Rosenzweig explored the same kind of abstract portraiture in his solo “Jerry,” to music by John Zorn and Primus. He carefully, warily traced the contours of the stage to the accompaniment of rumbles and tinkling bells, establishing a loose, twisty, arm-swinging vocabulary less detailed than the one he developed for “Grejs.” But the piece culminated at center stage with wildly accelerating body-lashing to rock accompaniment, ending only when he suddenly fell to his knees.

In the deliberately clunky “Jingele o Maidele,” the Rosenzweigs wore shaggy wigs and false teeth, initially dancing in heavy-footed unisons suggesting folk dance but growing progressively combative.

Vintage klezmer recordings reinforced the duet’s quasi-folkloric elements, but intriguing, asymmetrical partnering gambits midway through revealed Ari R.’s ability to reinvent social dance conventions. And the ending -- the man’s capture of a wooden pole that both dancers had previously wielded -- divided them forever and added contemporary political implications to their relationship.

The trio “Aetude” offered an overload of millennial familiarities: computerized music (in this case, Vivaldi), a cast that alternately glared at audience members and faced away from them, and blackouts dividing the piece into structural units that were continually reshuffled.

But even here, with more semaphoric body-lashing and a few classroom ballet moves driving the piece, a core of feeling increasingly colored the dancing. Echenique’s enigmatic supportive relationship with Hagit Rosenzweig, and an ending in which she revived or resurrected the fallen Rosenzweigs only to fall herself, raised issues of devotion and self-sacrifice that were unexpected in such a rigidly formalized context.

The tension between cool dance-for-dance’s-sake physicality and something more personal and dramatic forcing its way into his work makes Ari Rosenzweig very much of the moment. He’s been choreographing only since 2000. Watching him develop could be a vastly rewarding experience.