BodyVox has little need for words. The limbs do the talking.
"We always felt that through our bodies we were able to tell stories," said Jamey Hampton, co-artistic director for the contemporary dance company. "That's where the word BodyVox comes from. It's the voice of the body. We have spoken on stage before, but very little. It's just a way of talking about a kind of body language that you use to communicate."
The troupe has been creating abstract dance routines for more than five years. Based out of Portland, Ore., BodyVox has portrayed a variety of situations on stage, from fairy tales to cataclysmic events.
Their show at Emens Auditorium Friday night will be a homecoming for choreographer Eric Skinner.
Skinner, 39, has lived in the Portland area for 15 years and worked with the contemporary dance troupe for five years. A graduate of Butler University, he honed his dance skills at the Muncie Civic Auditorium and Emens.
"This will be the first time I've performed in about 23 years," he said.
Skinner choreographed a trapeze duet titled "X-Axis" for BodyVox.
"It's quite a beautiful piece with two men about five feet off the ground," he said. "You see all the movements and shapes from 360 degrees."
Other pieces feature a sleeping couple with contrasting dreams and twins bound together in choreographic geometry, set to Italian music. The company also produces short films, which it screens during the performances. One depicts Hampton dancing with a 23-ton excavator.
"That's when they (the audience) are really thrown off," Hampton said. "At that point they understand anything goes."
A graduate of Dartmouth College, Hampton has worked with several dance companies since the 1970s, traveling to such places as Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. His wife and fellow choreographer Ashley Roland worked with companies in Israel and the Netherlands. In 1986 the two created the ISO modern dance company.
Hampton formed BodyVox with Roland in 1997, when the Portland Opera commissioned them to produce a new version of the "Carmina Burana" cantata. Their current show, "Reverie," touches on themes of beauty and incorporates music ranging from Ravel to Johnny Cash.
"After a few pieces, audienceunderstand they're not at a normal dance concert," Hampton said. "We come out of the block sprinting, and we can go from something incredibly driving to something very intimate and poetic and touching."
Hampton doesn't categorize the company's style into any genre. BodyVox, he said, stretches the spectrum of technique.
"We see choreographic possibilities everywhere we look," he said. "That's why at one point we may have two men on a trapeze and at another point do a piece with three guys hanging in a cage. We're not bound by any particular artistic technique or style."
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