For the last five years, Velocity Dance Center has done a lovely thing, which is to invite dancers from all over the country to study at the feet of some of Seattle's best choreographers and teachers. Strictly Seattle, the performance at the end of the three-week workshop, is nothing like the dance recitals my ballet school periodically put on to show our parents what we'd learned, but rather a puu puu platter of the kind of works being created in our city right now.

The workshop is for dancers of all levels of experience and ability, and the six pieces in Strictly Seattle were choreographed with such differing levels in mind. This wasn't always successful: Wade Madsen's long and ambitious Water, set to the high-level solemnity of Arvo Pärt, seemed too difficult for the dancers--who struggled to make sense of the work and find its shape--and less forgiving of their idiosyncrasies. There were, however, some beautiful contact moments (dancers falling against each other and carrying each other away), but I was reminded that not every dancer is right for every choreographer. A dance corps' tightness has everything to do with a group of people working together continually over a long time, and choreographers choose dancers based on their ability to bring a certain sort of vision to life.

The Stinky Boy, choreographed by Amii LeGendre, was much more compelling. The piece was a lovely example of LeGendre's style, with its contained and not-so-contained violence, and energy searching for any possible outlet, with bodies flung into movement, onto the stage, or against each other. LeGendre doesn't use such intense moves cheaply or promiscuously, but rather as a kind of stubborn exploration of the problem of moving through space when there's another body in the way. LeGendre seemed to have more than her fair share of very good dancers, but perhaps it was just that she worked around the challenge of different experience levels wonderfully well. Throughout the piece, the dancers commented on their actions and criticized each other ("I hate it when you stand there, looking up," one said), which created a dissonant individualism in the group, an elegant and smart solution.

I also loved Dirty Suite, by 33 Fainting Spells (Dayna Hanson, Gaelen Hanson, and Peggy Piacenza), in which a group of girls dressed for basketball or cheerleading practice performed a work both girly and athletic. It was a combination of robust movement and cryptic motions--dancers scratching their arms, touching their noses, wiggling their fingers in their ears. My companion suggested later that these might be variations on baseball signals. The overall effect was both exuberant and thoughtful, a smart and talented girl gang.

The evening's crowd-pleaser, Wanted: Steel Ponies (Dead or Alive), was a send-up of Western themes, with a rousing Agnes de Mille-style romp set to Aaron Copland, a sentimental stroll through Patsy Cline's "Walking After Midnight," and then a hilarious air guitar charade--complete with bandannas tied around the dancers' thighs and lots of long hair being flung around--to Guns N' Roses. The dancers were clearly enjoying themselves, and who wouldn't, in a piece that makes good use of straw cowboy hats and a Hippity Hop? (I think that's the name for those big rubber balls with a handle....) Choreographed by Matthew Mulkerin and Jana L. Hill, it was funny, fun, and a welcome light moment in among the kind of seriousness that modern dance engenders, and it was also a fine way to showcase the work of beginning dancers without being condescending. (Utterly unlike the humiliating baseball-narrative ballet I had to dance when I was 10.)

This presentation of six different works in one evening offered a rare look at the things that bind choreographers together and set them apart. The pacing and repeating motifs of each work seemed very similar (scissoring movements, dancers running across the stage, the balance of slow and intense with quick and sharp) but the best works were clearly the choreographers' own. It's also gratifying to watch Seattle evolve into a force to be reckoned with--not just a place where dancers come because of the good work being done here, but also a place where dance performances sell out and the audience is attentive and appreciative.