For the last five years, four outside-the-box choreographers have been invited to create a 30-minute piece for a group of talented undergraduate dancers from Barnard University. The dancers are auditioned and selected by the individual choreographers. They then have less than 8 weeks of rehearsal before the uptown school’s showcase opens at Dance Theatre Workshop.

This year Morgan Thorson, Nora Chipaumire, Susan Rethorst, and Nicholas Leichter composed the four pieces at the downtown theatre. This myriad of unique dance styles didn’t always fulfill the audiences’ desires. The first two expositions had more time than they knew what to do with, and a few of them could have benefited from some more music.

Thorson’s Monuments and Other Points of Interest: A Revisionist Construction of Closeness had the smallest ensemble, in washed-out blue bonnets and shorts or skirts. They shuffled around and under two long skirted tables. This piece was unlike anything I have seen and I don’t know how to describe it.

In Bismillah by Chipaumire, in the orange and blue lighting reminiscent of day and night, the 12 young female dancers sighed and stomped their feet in African rhythms. The dance required a maturity the adolescents didn’t possess. This arrangement was better suited for Chipaumire herself.

Susan’s Hover was a light-hearted colorful piece with 8 girls, moments of old-time-movie music, and periodic black outs that broke it up into short acts. It had random moments of humor. The dancers made interesting shapes with each other’s bodies but what was most astonishing was they moved at the same time with no music cues and no eye contact.

The savior of the show, Leichter’s Waltzes, Wonder and First Choice, featured music (yay) of Alicia Keys, John Legend and others. Thirteen talented dancers in short blue dresses and suit pants and ties, explored relationships their maturity level could relate to. The feeling of the dance was not only showcased in the dancers’ movement but also in their expression. Leichter examined partnerships and created incredibly beautiful lifts. As an audience member this is what I come to see.