It's Grand: Sydney Dance Company @ Meany Hall

What we saw: army windmilling hypnotically in unison, a trio illustrating Murphy's fondness for when the body becomes the set (a stage to walk on, arms, hoops to jump through), wavelike movements passing through groups, sequential shapes appearing à la Busby Berkeley, Chen Wen soloing with a white shroud, or dress, or veil, tangling in it, the pianist Scott Davie and the grand piano gliding from one corner to another, Davie's hands playing against a transparent scrim for Cowell's "The Banshee," a fierce solo by Bradley Chatfield -- and then a "Tasmanian" dance competition (more memory-lane than mocking) a few steps shy of Strictly Ballroom with a bumblebee buzzing around, a ballerina in a tutu trying out some modern dance moves, and -- contestant #545 -- the Harold Lloyd of wanna-be dancers (and his stage mom) trying their best. For Keith Jarrett's "Over the Rainbow," dancers wearing tops with musical notes appliquéd appeared, later impersonating the piano's soundboard during a run of notes, and -- big finish -- a party scene, infatuations, jealousy, fisticuffs, the chandelier swinging like a metronome as time runs out, Bach again, the woman in black silk stepping back onto the stage... We can't say there was that "one piece" that astounded us, but we're delighted at how much of it stuck with us, that we're still mulling over, enjoying, the day after.

In retrospect, one reason we liked seeing the Sydney Dance Company had nothing to do with Graeme Murphy's choreography. We liked the fact that the dancers looked like real people. (For dance, that is.) American dancers in top companies look more and more like genetic experiments run by the people behind the O.C. They're unfailingly pretty, sculpted gym rats. These dancers were tall, short, burly, vanishingly petite. Some looked like bike messengers -- and some looked like movie stars, true, but the thing is there was variation, and it helped us identify with the dancers as people, rather than as ideal body types.