Korean troupe lifts bodies and spirits

Nobody uses the God-given right to float quite like Korean dancers. In refined classical moments, their elegant rising and sinking is like the sweetest breath you’ve ever taken. But even when more vigorous folk-inspired dancing occurs, there is a feeling that everyone knows what heaven is -- some place you aspire to with your best, delicately lifted, foot forward.

Using inspiration from traditional Korean dance and beyond, the Seoul-based ChangMu Dance Company made its local debut at the State Playhouse of Cal State L.A. on Sunday afternoon and proved to be a collection of beautiful movers. Founder and artistic director MaeJa Kim began the program with a subtly contained exorcism solo called “Salpuri,” but it was in “Shinmyoung” (Dynamic Force), with four musicians providing polyrhythmic percussion onstage, that her company made the biggest impact.

Wearing gauzy gowns in shades of peach, gray, ochre and ivory, dancers capered down the theater’s two aisles in drifty skips and bobs, with lyric arms that cushioned landings like wings. Once onstage, each seemed to be painting a portion of a canvas with percolating movements, until a sudden urge for collectivity brought them together in breathy drops and swirls. Each shift, each luxuriously felt quarter turn or twitch of a shoulder merged refinement and spontaneity. A heavy percussive clang made them momentarily sober, but they quickly found their inner elegant impulse to keep going.

A longer work, “Eye of Heaven,” looked like an arcane ritual of sorts with slowly evolving poses and short movement phrases perhaps influenced by shamanism, yoga and postmodern whimsy. By the end, it all seemed a little too wrapped in an enigma to make the most of this exquisitely focused company.