Brenda Way’s “A Brief History of Up and Down” begins with a series of questions tapped out with the clack-clacking keys of a manual typewriter and projected onto the rear wall. The dancers wear street clothes in varying shades of white, and saunter in winding patterns with a bit of fashion show runway stride. “When does walking become dancing?” Does form make it art?” Does rhythm seen feel different from rhythm heard?” The questions are intriguing for a dance audience—I can feel the heightened attention around me. After the question, “Can we see better in silence,” Rachel Furst strikes a balance on one leg and holds it in silence so long her muscles tremble.

Eventually, the walkers tighten their cluster. A few women are lifted like poptarts from a toaster, flipped upside down, then raised to sit astride their partner’s shoulders. When two men engage in a unison duet, Furst interrupts by rolling onto the stage. The men lift and pass her between them. She smirks as she straddles one’s shoulder. Jenna Marie is a spark of energy when she enters for a solo, her turns spiraling like a corkscrew, while two men behind her stand still with a head on each other’s shoulder.

Way founded ODC in 1971. With “The History of Up and Down,” she calls our attention to the shift in post-modern dance values from a preference in the ’60s for non-trained pedestrian movement to the kind of breath-taking virtuosity characteristic of ODC/Dance today. As if any ODC dancer could ever appear untrained: even while walking, their impeccable posture and stage presence is far from the ragtag group of rebels who experimented at Judson Church back in the day. (I can almost hear Way saying, my point exactly!)