By Rita Felciano

FOR HIS FIRST appearance in the Bay Area (Sept. 26 at Zellerbach Hall), choreographer Shen Wei brought two pieces whose stunning theatricality derived as much from Shen's visual acuity as from his kinetic imagination. The Rite of Spring, using an oddly doctored version of Stravinsky's two-piano rehearsal score, just about ignored the story of the virgin sacrifice. Instead Shen and his 11 superb Shen Wei Dance Arts dancers created an abstract canvas of ever-changing dynamics that pulsated against and with the music's propulsive rhythms. In Folding the dancers moved into a slow-paced universe more in tune with geological or cosmic than human time. Different as these pieces were, they worked for the same reason. Shen had a clear, strongly articulated vision of what he wanted in each piece, and he successfully translated it to the stage.

But maybe the most fascinating aspect of Shen's program was how comfortably he used his Chinese training in a Western-style proscenium theater. Trained as a painter and in Chinese opera, he brings a holistic approach to his work. For him – as for San Francisco choreographer Lily Cai, also trained in Chinese opera – dance's visual aspect is as important as its movement.

Rite started slowly, with the dancers stepping onto the stage one by one, while the house lights were still on. At first these self-conscious entries felt precious, but eventually they halted the audience's chattering: it would be hard not to focus attention on these tall, elegantly elongated creatures, dressed in somber gray and black, who came onto the stage in tiny steps of equal length and weight. When they didn't plop down like pebbles into water, they glided around, leaning into turns as if on ice, arms slightly bent but firmly placed against their thighs. Though dressed in tights and pants, the dancers often moved as if weighted down by heavy costumes. With their impassive faces painted white, they looked like puppets being propelled by mechanical forces.

Countermanding this uniformity were individual outbursts of leg contortions, angular folds or vertical leaps, often started by one dancer in response to a particular musical moment and then picked up by others. At one point tall Sara Procopio seemed to step into the role of the sacrificial maiden, but then that mere suggestion of a character evaporated as she melded back into the ensemble. Shen (an elegant, quicksilvery dancer himself) also stepped into a solo role but again was absorbed by the group.

For Folding, Shen designed long black and red skirts with ample fabric trailing on the floor. To create a gender-neutral vision, the skirts were worn bare-chested by the men and with flesh-colored tops by the women. The headdresses seemed inspired by either 18th-century European wigs or elaborate Chinese coiffures. The resulting look was one of aliens who moved through preordained patterns with equanimity and self-absorption.

Elliptical gliding walks in carefully measured intervals by dancers in red were punctuated, for no apparent reason except for visual contrast, by the periodic arrival of figures in black. Movement often consisted of slow bending at the hip and tiny progressions. At one point the dancers rushed together and sank down one by one, only to rise again ever so slowly in unison. At the same moment a twice-human-size figure in black emerged from the other side of the stage and started a spectacular backbend, head almost touching the floor. A little later on, swathed in voluminous folds of black, an impassive configuration of two dancers, their torsos joined at the waist, progressed to the front of the stage, only to unravel into bizarre sculptural configurations like dream figures from a surrealist painting. This section's most spectacular moment came when one of the figures, sitting on the folds of the common garment, was dragged out by the partner, who was doubled over.

Toward the end, Shen separated himself from the group for a trance dance. His slow articulations cast a mesmerizing shadow on the group, whose wafting arms and upward glances grew more meditative by the second. The piece ended in a haunting image: the dancers, through what seemed like stage magic, ascended into a mandala-like symbol that hung in the deepening darkness.

John Tavener's soft and often bell-like music, interspersed with robust and sometimes raucous Tibetan sounds, introduced a welcome note of variety to Folding's almost overly drawn-out timing. As clearly articulated as Shen's visual and kinetic imagination is, it may need a musical backbone such as Rite's odd fits of Stravinsky. Shen clearly and rightly believes in restricting his material, but sometimes less is not more.