By Carol Norris
Enquirer contributor

Pilobolus Dance Theatre has spent 31 years perfecting the art of ensemble dancing - perfecting and championing it. The popular company's mid-week performances at the Aronoff gave Cincinnati audiences a first look at its bodybuilding techniques. Judging from the Jarson-Kaplan's sold-out performances Tuesday and Wednesday, and the standing ovations, 31 years would be too long to wait to bring them back.

The bodybuilding is in the form of stacking - bodies piled on top of one another, or assembled in precarious hanging on poses. Someone's head may become a seat for someone else; his shoulders a perch for a lookout; his back a mountain to climb. No matter the theme of the individual piece, bodies will come together in ever-changing patterns, images will be created and stories will be told. And very often people will laugh.

Humor is a Pilobolus staple. Born of the imaginings of a couple Dartmouth guys trying to ace a required dance class, irreverence and wackiness loop through many of the works. No one who's seen it will ever forget the hairy legs beneath the women's long dresses in "Untitled" (1975).

Created by six choreographers (the ensemble theme inhabits the creative side, too), this early work remains one of its most popular. Two women, dressed in long dresses and big hats, dwell in an "Alice in Wonderland" world of suitors and physical oddities.

"Symbiosis" (2001) features the incredibly elastic Renee Jaworski and Otis Cookin a silken pas de deux. Nearly nude and bathed in a pale light, the two dance a tango of intimacy that creates sculpture-like images. To the sounds of the Kronos Quartet, Michael Tracy's piece allows a voyeuristic look at physical closeness.

"The Four Humours" (2002) couldn't be more of an opposite to Balanchine's classical interpretation of the same idea. Referring to the four humors used long ago for medicinal purposes, in this version Sanguine is a nutty kid's game; Phlegmatic is lethargic and sad; Choleric is physical battering and Melancholic is just that. It's all done in white hospital pajamas, featuring one of the four dancers with his head wrapped in a bloody head bandage. Quirky would be too mild a description.

With just five dancers, choreographer Alison Chase fills the stage with a journey to enlightenment in "Monkey and the White Bone Demon" (2001). In a tale without words, it's the monkey (a honed and toned Ras Mikey C) as the hero.