Lines took on an entirely different meaning in Lane’s “Incense Burning On A Saturday Morning: The Maestro.” An homage to Ernie Barnes (1938-2009), the first African-American athlete (he played professional football for several years, including with the Baltimore Colts and San Diego Chargers) to become a noted painter, the dance had been seen in September, but without video projections. 

Capturing the spirit of 1970s Harlem dance halls, Barnes’ paintings making use of rich colors and sweeping lines, giving oomph and rigor to stretched limbs and exaggerated movements, which would seem to lend themselves well to the spitfire dancers of BodyTraffic. 

And so they did! With Barnes’ iconic work, “The Sugar Shack,” impetus for Lane’s choreography, a stellar Alana Jones embodied the woman in yellow (she was also Barnes’ muse), while Morrison as the dynamic painter, wielded a brush and moved around the stage as if possessed. 

When the paintings came to life through Yee Eun Nam’s video design and Michael Jarett’s lighting scheme, Lane’s choreography, incorporating contemporary and African-inspired movements, had an undeniable heft, but again, there was a disconnect, this time with Munir Zakee’s original score, a percussion feast but one that is far afield from jazz.

Here was the entire company, also featuring Anaya Gonzalez, clad in Jarrod Barnes’ vividly colored costumes, each deploying varying series of arabesques, lunges and sky-high extensions, with a dollop of neo-fouettés thrown in for good measure. A veritable highlight, Morrison also got über-jiggy, a rubbery-kneed avatar romping across the floor in a hip-hop-like squatting/deep plié pose (don’t try this at home) as if in an Olympic-like dance-off.

Tribal in nature, Lane’s choreography was the most inventive of the evening, its energy undeniable, with the ensemble and partner moves Ailey-esque and emblematic of Barnes’ fluid brush strokes. While BodyTraffic remains one of L.A.’s most visible purveyors of contemporary dance—and its members are all exceptionally gifted and possessed of beautiful lines—it might behoove the company to have more of a unifying vision. 

Yes, these three works were all story ballets, but, alas, the stories seemed to have been lost in the terpsichorean telling.