Spring Dance Picks

Three works that will get us in the mood for spring. Set to a Rufus Wainwright score, Bud Suite is similarly sardonic. But with Bloom, using poetry by Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson and a score for a children's choir (also by Wainwright, though in a more sanguine mood), Petronio opens up an ecstatic vein, full of possibilities. Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring deals with a harsh world and the implacability of nature, but Petronio's interpretation is more joyous, with the promise of new life just beyond the problems at hand. Moore Theatre, 1932 Second Ave., 292-ARTS, www.themoore.com. $29–$34. 8 p.m. Sat., Feb. 24; 2 p.m. Sun., Feb. 25.

Kidd Pivot and Day Helesic

Just as the government is making it harder for us to go to Canada, On the Boards is bringing Canadian artists down here, starting with this pair of Vancouver dancer-choreographers. Kidd Pivot is headed by Crystal Pite, whose movement style is marked by her time in William Forsythe's kinetically daring and intellectually challenging Ballet Frankfurt. In Farther Out, Pite incorporates the trash and camp of science fiction with the densely over-lapping phrases of postmodern choreography, a full-body version of sleight of hand. In the second half of the bill, Day Helesic, who blew Northwest New Works audiences away last spring in her solo with microphone and hair, has transferred that rock and roll energy to an ensemble in Surge. The industrial elements in Alan Brodie's setting and Gordon Cobb's score contribute to a feeling of sensory overload. Helesic's credits as a dancer are an index of high-intensity performance—her work as a choreographer travels that same pathway. On the Boards, 100 W. Roy St., 217-9888, www.onthe boards.org. $18. 8 p.m. Thurs., March 29–Sat., March 31.

Lingo dancetheater

Lingo director KT Niehoff is throwing a party, disguised as a performance event. Or perhaps it's the other way around. In either case, "Inhabit" is a social and theatrical experiment, with audience and dancers chatting, sipping, mingling, and nibbling, checking each other out in a mix of living theater and living room. The next step after last year's small-plates and dance showing, "Nourish," "Inhabit" takes away the theater seating and dispenses with the idea of audience. "Guests" can watch from a selection of "vantage points" or choose to move through and between vignettes—the movement varies from full-throttle excitement to ritualized party behaviors that can transform watchers into doers, and challenge your assumptions about who the performers actually might be. Capitol Hill Arts Center, 1621 12th Ave., 349-8772, www.lingodance.com. $18. Opens 8 p.m. Thurs., April 19. Ends May 19.

Dayton Contemporary Dance

When he was on the art faculty at the University of Washington, Jacob Lawrence used to take his drawing students to watch dance classes and sketch from living bodies. There has always been a great deal of movement in his work, and now some of that potential action is released in "colôr-ógraphy, n. The Dances of Jacob Lawrence" from this Dayton, Ohio–based African-American-oriented company. A quartet of choreographers, including Spectrum Dance Theater's Donald Byrd and hip-hop master Rennie Harris, each contribute a section to a program-length exploration of the late painter's work. Meany Theater, University of Washington, 543-4880, www.meany.org. $39. Thurs., May 3–Sat., May 5.