By Rita Felciano

MARY CARBONARA HAS been part of the Bay Area dance scene since 1988. A former member of (among other groups) Robert Moses' Kin, she currently dances with the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company. Her choreographed works have popped up occasionally, but she didn't form her own company until 2002. So Carbonara's most recent world premiere, the 50-minute, six-dancer Deflecting Faith (June 10, ODC Theater), was a big piece for her. Big in almost every way: in her imaginative reach, in her choice of collaborators, and in her control of the material. The power of the performance and its ability to touch an audience were equally vast. Not bad for a company barely two years old.

In a program note, Carbonara explained she wanted to explore issues of faith, specifically "how it is obtained and focused, and ... what we choose to put our faith in." Clearly, Carbonara doesn't know that Choreography 101 says you cannot create dance concerning philosophical issues (the same way you cannot choreograph the concept of "mother-in-law," at least according to George Balanchine). But she blithely went ahead – and succeeded. Deflecting Faith wasn't a piece about questions to be asked, nor was it about answers to be gained. It was a piece about uncertainty, about wakefulness, about being present.

With Deflecting Faith, Carbonara created an environment, a world, a state of mind in which the ineffable was somehow present. The work started with and intermittently returned to repose: dancers standing, waiting, listening. Each one responded to Peter V. Swendsen's initially Arvo Pärt-tinged score differently – in moves and gestures that almost, but not quite, became signatures. One broke into a trajectory that shot her across the floor; another floated away; a third appeared to spin invisible threads. Dancers constantly reconfigured themselves into sculptural duos that evolved into streamlined trios, or into partnering moves that split wide open. Often three actions took place simultaneously, but Carbonara's airy control of space was such that nothing looked superfluous.

Two angled benches suggested a place of rest but were only used when the dancers, with their backs to the audience, stood in front of them. The image was one of a community that had come together for a common purpose. The piece's energy was often directed upward: fingers tried to catch a speck of sunlight or perhaps feel a bit of breeze. One of the dancers, Greta Jorgensen, emerged as something like a primary seeker, giving and receiving comfort from fellow dancer Never Navarro. There was a suggestion that faith could be found through connecting with partners, but those moments, though physically strong, proved fragile. They evaporated. Ultimately each person was alone.

Carbonara's biggest asset is her language. Coming as it does out of her own body, it proves she's conquered a young choreographer's major hurdle: the challenge of translating something so personal to other dancers. As a performer, Carbonara moves with a weighted softness that isn't unlike that of the Japanese calligrapher, whose ink-filled brush responds to the slightest pressure and twist to trace a path. Though she didn't perform in this work, her vocabulary of luscious precision moves – her ability to extend a phrase, to let it go and then pull it back in – was all over Deflecting Faith.

The six dancers (Jennifer Bishop-Orsulak, Jorgensen, Grace Kraaijvanger, Navarro, Laura Sharp, and Steffany Toto), most of them relatively unknown, are exquisitely trained. Strong individuals in their own right – Carbonara may have learned how to choose dancers from Jenkins – they have absorbed Carbonara's vocabulary and added their own nuances and accents. Jorgensen probably was a sylph in an earlier life; Bishop-Orsulak was a dynamo of powerhouse moves, while Kraaijvanger inflected with almost imperious assertiveness.

José María Francos's glorious lighting design included a Clifford Still-inspired backdrop, and Swendsen's highly skillful score was richly detailed; it ranged from pure music to sermons, confessionals, and exhortations that he mixed and fractured to float through the work like echoing memories. Yet silence was a major element of this work. In the program, Carbonara quoted a line from poet Kathleen Norris: "What would I find in my own heart if the noise of the world were silenced?" A great deal, and a great dance piece, it turned out.