Bebe Miller Company

Fri/28-Sat/29, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater

FIVE YEARS AGO, after 22 years of dance-making, constant touring, and the ever-present struggles to keep her company afloat, Bebe Miller decided to accept a teaching appointment from her alma mater, Ohio State University. She needed, she has said, "a place to put a sofa" – and, probably, health insurance and a regular paycheck. Of course, that meant she had to cut down her visibility on the touring circuits where she had established an enviable reputation as maker of fierce, theatrically accessible, but nonnarrative work. Now, after a 15-year absence from the local stage, Miller is back in San Francisco with an ensemble of five dancers, among them the redoubtable Kathleen Hermesdorf. Albert Mathias is responsible for the musical score. The new Landing/Place uses motion-capture technology to generate choreography – both onstage and on-screen. Landing, which supposedly was inspired by a trip to Eritrea, examines "cultural dislocations and feelings about being home and being away." One wonders whether another sense of dislocation – after all, she is a native New Yorker – has not left its mark on Landing as well. 8 p.m., 700 Howard, SF. $18-$25. (415) 978-ARTS, www.ybca.org. (Rita Felciano)