One thing’s unbeatable about Tacoma: how you can drive downtown in ten minutes, find a free parking place one minute’s walk from a cool black box venue, pay just $15 and see contemporary dance that Seattlites would kill for (or at least, pay through the nose.)

This was exactly what happened Saturday night at the Move! dance concert by MLKBallet, the fifteenth in the series. Fundraisers for the tuition-free Tacoma dance school, the Move! concerts bring together dance from young students to top-quality professionals; this one created a kaleidescope of mostly brilliant work.

The highlight of the evening was Spectrum Dance Theater. The Seattle contemporary dance group is always a highly-polished, boundary-breaking experience, and in director Donald Byrd’s new work “the possibility of not existing,” the five Spectrum dancers totally delivered. A moving exposition on death, the work contrasts the agonized beloved left behind (Tory Peil), the dead soul moving on (a thoughtful Joel Myers) and a stern-faced trio who begin as a funeral cortege and break off into a lyrical pas de deux (Ty Cheng, Kelly Ann Barton) and a frighteningly inevitable Death (Kylie Lewallen, incredibly flexible.) Byrd’s usual mix of intensely awkward and poetically lyric moves flowed unstoppably to the poignant ending.

Following Spectrum is hard, but Kate Monthy’s MLKBallet company made a good effort. Pairing with guitarist Vicci Martinez for original music, Monthy’s “Heart and Bones” was danced well but lacked direction. To a pulsing drum heartbeat, frantic samba or heavily reverbed guitar chords Monthy delivered a one-emotion sermon on betrayed women, relying on a rather monochrome vocabulary of raised fists, pleading hearts and desperate archings. The ‘80s rocker hairdos were a little distracting, but overall the feel suited Martinez’ twangy meditation.

In the first half of the program, several works shone. The new-ish Coriolis Dance Collective produced Byrd-like choreography and excellent dancing, movements morphing from crane to cat to frog in fantastic outfits of frilly white Victorian knickers (even the guys.) The Alloy Dance Project, with a simple yet effective combination of whippy and balletic moves, created a tribal effect to some flamenco rock, complete with ribboned hairpieces swirling like dreadlocks.

Hannah Crowley’s “Travelling Light” was a gorgeous solo dive into successive pools of light around the stage, to a guitar raga by Brandon Imamshah. Robyn Jaecklein, of the Tacoma Dance Collective, presented her latest Furniture Piece “Chair” – she and Mary Mabry, outfitted in frilly purple and orange petticoat-knickers, tumbled over a giant-sized rocking chair like a pair of Hogwarts elves. More choreography and humor would turn this work into something out of Cirque du Soleil. Ezra Dickinson’s “Sand” played with identity and disguise to a voice narrative of an existentially panicking dream.

The only let-down of the show was a film by Luke Sieczek as pretentious as it was boring – ironic, considering the great idea of filming water and leaves close-up, then exposing the 16mm film to weather. It’s hard to decide whether shoveling compost or dancers gyrating in organic T-shirts is more tedious to watch.

Perhaps the best part of the show, for the packed audience in that incredibly hot theater, was the class of 20-odd young MLK students in baggy shorts and leotards, faces tiger-painted and feet stomping with verve like tiny but ferocious forest creatures. They brought down the house.

Rosemary Ponnekanti: 253-597-8568
rosemary.ponnekanti@thenewstribune.com