River North Dance Chicago at Harris Theater for music and dance

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Updated: November 15, 2010 3:01PM

What’s in a name? Watching the formidable dancers of the River North Chicago Dance Company perform to a packed house at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance on Saturday night (an audience, it should be noted, comprised of mostly hip young couples), I found myself at once massively impressed by the sheer virtuosity of the dancers and their repertoire, and puzzled by the fact that this troupe does not have a grander profile on the national dance map.

Maybe it’s the simple fact that the company’s name is blandly generic while its onstage presence could not be more galvanic. Whatever the reason, anyone at Saturday’s one-night-only fall engagement will not need convincing that this is one sleek, confident, athletic, daring, versatile company that easily can compete with the best of them.

The seven challenging pieces on the program also offered something for every taste.

For those drawn to the most sophisticated modern jazz, full of echoes and quirky tempos and mood shifts, there was “Risoluta,” a world premiere by Sidra Bell, set to a fascinating original score by Sidra’s dad, composer Dennis Bell, played by saxophonist Casey Benjamin. Nine dancers dressed in ambisexual red and black tunics (Hanna Brictson, Kelly Michael Brunk, Christian Denice, Brandon DiCriscio, Michael Gross, Lizzie MacKenzie, Cassandra Porter, Ricky Ruiz and Jessica Wolfrum), created a sort of vampires-at-a-brothel web of relationships in which nothing seemed quite real, but the erotic/combative overtones were palpable, as was the warping of time. I found the music more intriguing overall than the choreography.

The true masterwork of the evening was artistic director Frank Chaves’ 2009 “Forbidden Boundaries,” set to a driving original score by Evan Solot that alternated with existing music by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Gustavo Santoalalla. With the dancers in stretchy white costumes by Jackson Lowell that serve as “the ties that bind,” this work about psychological freedom and captivity demands powerhouse dancing from everyone. But it is the trio section titled “Hidden Truth” -- a mix of suppressed flight and gymnastic magic that was performed to riveting effect by MacKenzie and her fine partners, Gross and Ruiz -- that was the real knockout sequence.

The program began with Kevin Iega Jeff’s “Sky” (2006), a work to the music of Steve Reich and Sigur Ros that easily suggests “The Rapture,” and was impressively danced by the company -- first in a state of fury, and then with a sort of otherworldly peace.

It was followed by “Beat,” a “structured improvisation” devised by Ashley Roland, and danced to giddy-making effect by Christian Denice (the virtuosic workhorse of the evening), who gave the whole spotlighted bravura turn a sort of bodybuilder mystique. Denice later teamed with Gross and Ruiz for “Three,” the playfully acrobatic tour de force by Robert Battle (soon to become artistic director of the Alvin Ailey company) that suggests Pac-Man figures run amok. It’s a genuine audience pleaser.

There was seamless partnering and altogether lushly beautiful romantic dancing from Gross and Wolfrum in “The Mourning,” a fiercely passionate pas de deux by Chaves, set to a David Visan and Julien Leca song performed in Russian by the soulful Bielka Nemirovski.

“Suppose,” Lauri Stallings’ strange but compelling work to the music of Deadbeat and Santaolalla, revealed her intriguing sense of patterning, group dynamics and emotional disconnect. And, in a sense, the whole River North program served as an intriguing exploration of “forbidden boundaries.”