Mixed Pickles Vintage Dance Company even has a funny name, but their shtick—presenting renderings of American social dance—is an earnest conceit. Their demonstrations of dances from the ragtime era presented in the Wilma's lobby included the cakewalk and foxtrot, and maintained sincere authenticity. Humorous banter between selections, provided by Bob Skiba, lightened the mood while offering informative tidbits to put each dance in historical context.

The yin and yang of relationships received a spirited workout in Keely Garfield Dance's Scent of Mental Love. Described as "a painstakingly wrought prearranged faux pas-de-deux," this piece craftily converted into movement the interior wranglings between a mismatched couple. Dancers Garfield and Paul Hamilton are a duo going through the motions of being together for the sake of being together. Their highly physical duets portray sexual encounters that convey ennui during trysts that inevitably turn into comical engagements. Other times the dancers stand on opposite ends of the stage and take large, deliberate steps while pulling on an imaginary rope, only to pass one another by. The slapsticky nature of their interactions (or non-interactions) accentuated the absurdity of their situation, as did singing by live onstage accordionist Rachelle Garniez, whose off-kilter lyrics were a laugh-out-loud treat unto themselves.

Headlong Dance Theater's Shosha took the process of deconstructing dance to an extreme by having one of its members, Andrew Simonet, occasionally halt the action and tell the audience the intent behind what the performers were doing at different points in the piece: In the beginning he explained how everyone was "opening up" and experiencing the "flow of chi." Simonet also stopped things to redirect a scene, instigating instant improv from the dancers. His deadpan humor garnered hearty laughs, while Shosha, the dance work, was beautifully poignant.

There was some serious material on the program: Subcircle's Somewhere Close to Now, where Niki Cousineau's fluid postmodern steps, combined with Jorge Cousineau's sound and video, evolved into a surreal conceptual contemplation on time and space.

DanceBoom!

Program 3, with Keely Garfield Dance, Headlong Dance Theater, Mixed Pickles Vintage Dance Co, Subcircle July 1, Wilma Theater