Dancers Get Down To The Basics--Water, Earth And Wind. By Margaret Regan WHEN THE RADICAL San Francisco dance/theatre troupe Contraband gets down into the dry bed of the Rillito late Thursday afternoon (April 25) for a movement workshop, the dead river might not shock them as much as Tucsonans embarrassed by the desiccated waterway might expect. After all, the nine-member company of dancers, musicians and writers developed its piece Return to Ordinary Life in the violated wastelands along the shore of San Francisco Bay. Working on the appropriately named Tire Beach, a debris-strewn gravel stretch of beach right along the water, the team developed part three of its Mira Cycle, loosely based on the life of a semi-mythical holy woman of 16th-century India. The theme of water runs through the evening-length work, to be presented at 8 p.m. Saturday at Centennial Hall, like, well, a river. Water-drenched trash and found objects from Tire Beach find their way into the inter-disciplinary piece, in which, the company explains, "water appears metaphorically in song, text and visual imagery." Contraband, a troupe well known for its avant-garde treatment of social issues, likes to do workshops focusing on local problems in the communities where it performs. In Tucson-of-the-dead-rivers, the choice of water was a no-brainer. Anybody is welcome to dance in the arroyo for free with the company. The two-hour workshop begins at 5:30 p.m. in the Rillito east of Campbell Avenue and south of River Road. Park in the Pima County Extension lot, south of the wash, and walk in. Tickets to the Saturday Contraband concert are $15. Call the box office at 621-3341 for more info. ANNE BUNKER HAS been thinking about water too, and wind and earth, as her Tucson company, Orts Theatre of Dance, prepares for its own performance in nature. Orts in the Park After Dark, the eighth annual, free Orts show in the DeMeester bandshell at Reid Park, takes place at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday, April 26, 27 and 28. But a week before showtime, Bunker and a crew of six other dancers were still working out the details of her new work-in-progress, "Windways," in the Orts rehearsal space on Stone Avenue. After a demanding 25-minute run-through that required, among other things, upside-down gyrations on Orts' trademark trapezes, the panting dancers gathered around artistic director Bunker for further direction. "The image I'm giving you is you're the air on top of the water," she told Becky Speegle. "They're the earth under the water." She directed Stacey Haynes to swivel her hips, "almost as if you were seaweed, rooted, moving and the wind is giving you support." She exhorted apprentice Tammy Rosen, performing for the first time with the company in the weekend concert, to "be in that wind character when you come in from the wing. You need to swoop on." Later, as the winded dancers took a lunch break, Bunker explained that wind, earth and water are double metaphors for both the workings of nature and of people. "Wind can be caressing, confined or agitated, like human relationships," she said. "I related wind to human-ness." "Windways," which is scheduled to get a full, original score by R. Carlos Nakai by the time it premieres in the fall, will be danced in the park to older, taped music by Nakai and Peter Kater. Chuck Koesters and Kent Baldridge will perform live music in between the dance pieces, which will also include the humorous, 1995 multi-media work "Bedfellows," by Bunker and dancer Mary Putterman; a duet excerpt from the challenging "Shift" by Joy Kellman, which premiered just two months ago; and the 11-year-old "Orts," the joyful Bunker piece that gave the company its name. At the Saturday and Sunday shows only, trapeze maven Robert Davidson of Seattle will reprise his solo, "Ramses Rising," seen in Orts' concert at The Temple Of Music And Art last fall. It was Davidson who first inspired the company to take to the air on ropes. Trained by Davidson, Bunker now teaches trapeze dance here in town. "My whole life I'd had dreams of leaping and staying in the air for a long time," Bunker confided, slowly drawing a wide arc in the air with her arm. "And then I'd come down." And even though the trapeze now lets her make those leaps in real life, she said, "I still have that dream." Bring your own chairs or blanket and a picnic to the free concert. Baked goods will be for sale at a concession booth. For more information, call 624-3799.

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