Aside from some minor confusion over the order of the works presented, Pilobolus Dance Theatre's Friday night performance went off without a hitch.

And that's not all that came off.

Though not the focus of the performance, it was the graphic frankness --that is to say nudity -- that truly grabbed the audience's attention in the evening's last work Debut C. The auditorium was as silent as a funeral parlor as the dancers explored gender and sexuality behind a transparent curtain. They were accompanied by a spectacular array of slides projected on the curtain, which veiled the front of the state.

Pilobolus presented a program that encapsulated a vast range of emotions -- from loneliness to love, humor to pathos, malice to sexuality. The group's newest piece, The Particle Zoo, was simultaneously poignant and funny as it chronicled the struggles of a man trying to fit into the group.

While three of the male dancers in The Particle Zoo performed acrobatics only a trust born of recklessness could engender -- such as taking flying leaps into the connected arms of two of the other dancers -- the fourth male dancer was always abandoned by his companions in mid-leap to land in a seemingly painful somersault.

The group also proved its reputation for imaginative bodily contortions. In The Particle Zoo, one dancer walked in slow motion over a land mass made up of the bodies of the other three dancers. At another point in the dance, two of the dancers executed a series of slow flips by grasping and lifting each other by the hips.

In Land's Edge, perhaps the most entertaining and lighthearted piece of the evening, one female dancer's body was used as one would play with a limp doll. The curious observers who had watched her wash up on an imaginary shore dragged, hoisted, spun and poked the dancer in an attempt to identify the unknown object.

Lighting, tense music and slow motion dance was used effectively to dramatize particularly intense emotional situations. In The Particle Zoo, the lighting's intensity reflected the intensity of emotions at play, while an effect similar to moonlight sifted through the leaves of a tree was used in the folk dance / myth, Land's Edge. The Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble accompanied the performance of The Particle Zoo with creative electronic music which accurately reflected the dancers' exploration.

Overall, Pilobolus knows how to put together a good program with strong, controlled dance, inspired choreography and a musical program to match. It is no great wonder, with such life and diversity in its performance repertoire, that Pilobolus has been around for almost 20 years.