Pilobolus, The Ruth Seaton James Auditorium.

Pilobolus, an American dance company of international standing, blazed across the Bermuda scene again on Thursday night with a programme to shock, thrill and amaze a buzzing audience.

It was the first of three performances the company is staging for the Bermuda Festival. Pilobolus made its Festival debut in 1996 and dance enthusiasts have been clamouring for its return ever since.

Judging by the tumultuous response to opening night, it would be fair to say Festival-goers were more than gratified.

Over its near 30 years of creating dance Pilobolus has built up a reputation for crafting the innovative and the unusual. Its programme -- which comprises its own choreography -- is largely the work of the company as a whole rather than any one individual. This unusual synergistic collaboration produces something that appears to resonate with a life of its own and its protean organic nature is as much evident in its mesmerising execution as in its homogeneous evolution.

This is no doubt largely because the physical vocabularies of Pilobolus' works are not drawn from the long traditions of codified dance movement but are invented, emerging from intense periods of improvisation and creative play.

All five pieces performed this week varied considerably in subject matter and mood, yet common throughout was Pilobolus' ability to present works both vivid and exploratory that stretched the imagination and exploited the human form.

Theirs was an effortless grace evidenced by lifts using unaccustomed limbs that seemed to defy gravity and contortions that questioned medical science.

The quality of a Pilobolus production as a whole sets it apart. Here, atmospheric lighting, masterful sound management and sensitive costuming meshed with each work to create a palpable synergy to excite all the senses.

Shock tactics were used to great effect in the opening. `Apoplexy', created two years ago, begins by thrusting its six dancers to the ground to the tune of gunfire -- or, as its name would suggest, as if in an apoplectic fit.

Working with a pulsating unity, dancers were used as skipping ropes with body pyrotechnics building to reflect the increasing hammering cacophony of the music.

Paul Sullivan's music was created especially for the company, mixing sound effects with melodious and arthymic interludes used to great visual effect by this lithe sextet.

Moments of frenzied physical interaction were contrasted with staggering displays of bizarre balancing at times to near silence.

Quieter passages in the compositions were extensive, demanding faultless control from the dancers as even the wavering of a supporting leg would not only be visually obvious but blatantly audible as well.

`Pseudopodia', a solo performed by Rebecca Anderson and one of the company's earliest creations, continued the evening's theme of mind-bending pliancy and skeletal articulation.

Anderson, clad only in a red bodystocking rolled about the stage to infectious drumming with apparently little to support her enviously articulate spine on a hard floor. She moved as if through liquid, and gravity seemed to have moved elsewhere.

`Gnomen', choreographed in 1997, saw four male dancers: Otis Cook, Matt Kent, Gaspard Louis and Benjamin Pring bowl onto the stage as if they were one amorphous piece of flesh.

Here some imaginative lighting threw their well-honed muscular structure into amazing relief and the timing in sound control and dance presentation were exquisite.

This piece had a pulse and resonance that was captivating. Again Sullivan's music invited flights of fantasy with each of the four dancers, clad in nothing but black shorts, taking it in turn to embody its varying moods. Heads were apparently screwed into the floor, bodies appeared suspended in mid air and dancers transformed themselves into a revolving square.

`Uno, Dos, Tray', created last year, is a feisty, humorous little piece with a Latin theme showing two tattooed sailors, danced by Otis Cook and Gaspard Louis tussling over Josie Coyoc playing a pert little waitress.

Some sprightly, Latin inspired choreography combined with beautifully timed nifty manoeuvres which verged on slapstick, made this a very entertaining dance to watch.

`The Hand That Mocked, The Heart That Fed' -- like much of the company's work -- is a commissioned piece. In this case it was requested by the American Dance Festival, with whom Pilobolus works routinely, and The John F. Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts. Other arts bodies also gave additional support.

As its title might suggest, the piece, which is set to a jazz composition by Maria Schneider, seemed to find its inspiration in the human world. Split into various sections predicated by the same tableau, the sextet appeared to dwell on a wide range of human emotions, yet all this was expressed through the unexpected and seemingly impossible. Dancers were tossed, caught, spun and floated in a wave of endless movement that seemed to engulf the auditorium.

Like most works included in this programme, this last one exhibits laudable creativity. A contributory factor to its unusual format is no doubt the fact that all the dancers have such varied backgrounds and credentials and all lend something different to the choreographic melting pot.

With such all-round quality in performance it is hardly surprising that Pilobolus, which sprang from a dance class at Dartmouth College and strangely named after a fungus, has been invited to perform world-wide. The company is a veteran of two seasons on Broadway and currently presents a month of performances at the Joyce Theater in New York City every year.

Bermuda is fortunate to have been able to host the company again. Together with the Bolshoi, Pilobolus has made Festival 2000 a more than memorable one for the Island's many dance enthusiasts.

LOUISE FOISTER Mind-bending: The movements of Pilobolus stray from convention.

THEATRE THR