CityDance Ensemble performs Sophie Maslow’s 1942 piece "Folksay" on Friday.

With long horizontal strides, wide smiles that reached the upper tier of Strathmore’s grand 2,000-seat concert hall, and arms fully outstretched at an angle to either side, the CityDance Ensemble began The Songwriters, the final performance of their 2007-2008 season. Farmer boys were clad in jeans and flannel shirts; farmers’ daughters sported flowing frocks. Moving briskly in rows from stage right to stage left, they resembled the moving targets of one of those amusement park midway games in their passing uniformity.

The first of five distinct sets on Friday evening that each paid tribute to some of America’s greatest songwriters, the staging of Sophie Maslow’s 1942 piece "Folksay" was one part dustbowl hoedown, one part Oklahoma!, and one part West Side Story, all set to the music of Woody Guthrie. The narration for a scene featuring two fellas fightin’ could have been the Jets and Sharks trading barbs: “This corner is mine, see.” A series of zingers from an older era peppers the cool interaction of skirt chasing being acted out on stage. The dancing tells the story of the songs. The dancers are all “dodgers” and lose their true lovers. When guitarists John Ratliff and Ryan Walker close with “Ride Around Little Doggies”, the dancers gracefully simulate a ride on horseback or steering of a dog sled with a tug on the reigns.

The opener for the "Born to Run" Bruce Springsteen set served the purpose of walking the company onto stage in their costume change—jeans and leggings, bold and bright T-shirts, 80s outfits—with the music awkwardly cutting mid-song. “Ain’t Got You”, the highlight of the set, featured Jason Garcia Ignacio and Delphina Parenti in a bed-bound lovers quarrel. The pair seem to smack a whole pack of cigarettes out of each other’s hands over the course of the song. Embraces turn into slaps to the face. The piece is impressive for the close quarters movement and chemistry of the dancers, and inevitably finishes with a hug. It outshines “The River”, a monologue by Springsteen delivered to a live concert audience about growing up, his long hair, tension with his father, and tanking his Vietnam draft physical. The captivating story demands attention from the listener, diverting it away from what Bruno Augusto and Christopher Morgan are doing in their modern dance floor work.

Frédéric Yonnet led the evening into "The Falling" from the back of the house, slowly making his way down to the stage, stopping to serenade an aisle-seated patron or three with his skillful harmonica playing before finally joining pianist Vince Evans on stage. The two provide the rhythm and blues backdrop, Otis Redding’s “Try a Little Tenderness”, for a black clad Kathryn Pinkington and Augusto—a sexy performance and the second lovers spat of the evening. The piece showcases the angst and passion of a tortured relationship. No inevitable embrace at the end here.

A global warming-themed piece, "On a Train Heading South", saw an arc of 12 blocks of ice hanging from the ceiling. Parenti returned from her well-received Springsteen feature to dance lead and her curly, fiery red hair complemented the jittery, mad, pained way she performed in this piece. Portraying Cassandra from Greek mythology, given the gift of knowing the future and truth but also cursed so that no one will listen, the ensemble behind their muse portrays a narcissistic troupe, oblivious to the luminous blocks of ice (or perhaps polar ice caps) hanging over them. Ladies are delicate and pretty with pink summer dresses and white slips. The score figures prominently here; music turns to political sound bytes on climate change. Traditional composition gives way to Britney Spears’ “Toxic”.

The printed program discusses and disagrees with a standard criticism of dance set to rock music: the dancing can rely too much on the lyrics to tell the story rather than the music and the movement. The Songwriters fell prey to this critique at times, such as with the populist one-liners from Carl Sandburg’s “The People, Yes”, recited by Ratliff to open and close the "Folksay" set. But with a technically strong, colorful, and creative effort, CityDance delivered a winning, even rocking, evening.

CityDance's next performance will be, appropriately, Next, this coming October.