Knight’s ‘Stilt World’ is a wonderful place to visit

Stilt virtuoso Trey Knight was born at almost exactly the same time in the early 1970s when Pilobolus Dance Theatre began to embody the prime postmodern tenet that any physical discipline could be dance -- as long as a dance imagination shaped it. That tenet was his birthright.

Informed by Knight’s awesome technique, his “Stilt World: A Glimpse Into Unexpected Realities” offered dance-imagination galore and the sense of a new movement-theater language being born on Sunday in the cabaret-style Music Box at the Henry Fonda Theatre in Hollywood.

The revelations included an eight-member corps performing unison stepping, turning and kicking routines on stilts; Knight and Michael Nunez on stilts lifting modern dancer Nina McNeely up from the floor and swinging her through the air in intricate trio-partnering maneuvers; Knight and Nunez kneeling on stilts to smoothly execute complex sculptural floor gymnastics; and Knight rising on an aerial hoop for acrobatic balances high above the stage while still wearing his stilts.

Moreover, the sense of physical freedom that Knight conveyed with every move -- and transmitted to his colleagues -- often seemed as remarkable as the feats themselves, even when the seating arrangements at the Fonda left only the people in the first row of tables and in the balcony with an unobstructed view of the stage.

If Knight and company provided the primary focus of the event, most of the actual running time belonged to the wildly glamorous retro chanteuse Morganne -- stylish and resourceful even when the show seemed to be falling apart around her -- along with a versatile four-man band and members of Kitty McNamee’s Hysterica Dance Company.

At the beginning of the evening, Knight’s half-male, half-female costume for Nunez established a thematic emphasis that made McNamee’s same-sex choreography from her recent full-evening “Victorious” fit right in. Arguably the most daring exploration occurred in Knight’s androgynous “Dreaming in Colour” male quartet (with Knight resplendent in black stockings and garter belt).

Right now, however, Knight’s choreography simply dumps its technical effects on the stage in no particular order and ends ineffectually whenever he’s finished picking through them. Thus, there’s lots more work to be done and skills to be learned, but “Stilt World” marks a spectacular breakthrough.