IT'S EASY TO take Dimensions Dance Theater for granted. After all, it has been around for 32 years. But think about it: In 1972 a reactionary Republican was in the White House, American soldiers were dying overseas, and the country faced an oil crisis. How does the saying go? The more things change, the more they remain the same. A depressing thought, but, fortunately, there are beams of light. Dimensions is one of them. Its cofounding artistic director Deborah Brooks Vaughan has never given up her conviction that music and dance can empower people, create community, and effect social change. In the early years she more clearly separated her works into traditional African American re-creations and her own or somebody else's contemporary choreography. She has long since fused the two streams that feed her creativity into work that is anchored in the diaspora and yet speaks to who we are today. Now she has embarked on another ambitious enterprise. Spirits Uplifted is the first entry in a multiyear project with Linda Tillery and her Cultural Heritage Choir, for which the two women are collaborating on exploring "the whole range of the African American aesthetic and experience." Dimensions' professional dancers are joined by the company's student dancers, Dimensions' Rite of Passage. 8 p.m., 10 10th St., Oakl; $20-$25. (510) 652-2344, www.ticketweb.com. (Rita Felciano)