By Rita Felciano

THIS YEAR'S WEST Wave Dance Festival heralded its arrival with a lineup of 23 world premieres and 40 West Coast choreographers. That's a lot of dance in three weeks, even for a dance-mad town like San Francisco. Whether people have the stamina to keep up with the eight programs of one- or two-night runs remains to be seen. If the first two packed nights are any indication, the audience is there, raring to go.

Still, opening night was not exactly a gala event. Though it was announced as an evening of world premieres, Viktor Kabaniaev's promised Duet didn't materialize. He substituted a trio, Largo, instead. Good for him; if a piece isn't ready, it isn't ready. Some other choreographers probably should have made the same decision. Christy Funsch's noodling Big Little Sweets, set to a mediocre rendition (by Alex Keitel) of Bach Preludes for solo cello, looked like she was trying to delve into unknown territory. The difficulty she had – and was not able to overcome – was in portraying this journey without looking tentative herself. Nina Haft's Tuning: Radius similarly lacked tensile strength. Beginning as a duet for two tall dancers, it then introduced a second, shorter pair, but the connection between the two couples never happened. For Haft this was a foray into pure form; she probably needs to rethink the piece's "what" and "how."

The evening's best work came from new kids on the block, Ryan T. Smith and Wendy Rein's RAWdance. Un[covered] was a funny, drum-tight, and oddly sensual quintet in which artifice transcended itself. Sometimes people play games with each other that all of a sudden turn into something else. Two people's athletic rolling on top of each other, for instance, became a whoa! moment. It's this thin line when play ceases to be play that the choreographers so successfully examined, modulating a restricted, stiff-limbed vocabulary with dexterity and wit.

Listening to Henryk Gorecki's popular Third Symphony has always struck me as a bit like wallowing in warm mud – you need an ice-cold shower afterwards. To Kabaniaev's credit, he made the symphony's third movement listenable by infusing its lugubrious atmosphere with genuine drama. The penumbral Largo might even be effective as a solo. Tina Bohnstedt is a woman racked by some unnamed sorrow, her movement angular, then flailing and contracting. Terrin McGee and Amanda McGovern are Bohnstedt's attendants, fellow mourners, or perhaps just emanations of her pain. Structurally, the piece could use work, but then Gorecki, of course, is no help.

Kate Mitchell's sumptuous Revienta brought the first evening to an unfocused if visually satisfying closure. Fabulous costumes – long brown military coats that opened up to suggest lush evening gowns – could not completely overcome choreography that was either overly ambitious or underrehearsed. Set to Renaissance music, the whirlwind choreography veered between court-inspired formality and explosions of individuality. A feverish quality made for an intoxicating, ghostlike atmosphere. If only the dancers hadn't been so tense.

The second program opened with Familiar Voices in Tender Passing, by the Modesto-based Lori Bryhni, who brought a septet of dancers with her. Highly expressionistic, with its heart on its sleeve, the piece featured much changing of partners, falling, and supporting. Well-performed, it often looked like the early days of modern dance, in which each work had to develop its own language. Constructed along traditional lines in terms of space and time, Familiar may not be up with the latest fashions, but it is a solid, honest piece of choreography.

The program also featured three world premieres. Don't Open Until Christmas is another of Jenny McAllister's comedy routines, this one a take-off on the Nutcracker's dancing dolls and every kid's temptation to open presents early. McAllister can tell funny (and they are funny) stories reasonably well, but does the choreographic vocabulary have to be so simpleminded? Annie Rosenthal Parr and Ashley Holladay's bucolic romp Field set the two against country music by the Tin Hat Trio. At times Holladay's more-grounded way of moving – slithering across the floor like a slug on speed – gelled well with Parr's quicksilver approach. But the choreography, the unisons in particular, seemed unfairly stacked in favor of Parr's more obviously dancey body.

With an intriguing trio on competition and support and a lovely, nuanced duet for herself and Patric Cashman, Lisa Townsend's quintet Can I Want It? was the kind of piece for which West Wave is designed: a work by young choreographers that has you excitedly awaiting what they do next. To close, you couldn't imagine John Kloss's Measured Response any better than it was. His dance is pure and pristine: no story, no score – just a man and his taps, a perfect fusion of sight and sound.

'West Wave Dance Festival' runs through July 31. Program 5, Thurs/21-Fri/22, 8 p.m.; Program 6, Sat/23-Sun/24, 8 p.m., Cowell Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF. Festival passes $16-$100. (415) 863-9834. For more information, go to Stage listings or www.summerfestdance.org.