by MARITES CARINO

Like many a Hollywood flop, there are dance shows that are easily forgotten. But certain choreographies possess inexplicable qualities that leave the spectator with lasting, vivid images, despite the passing of time. Here's a handful of those that did just that over the past year.

One work that really left its mark for me was a solo show by dancer Akram Khan at the Musée d'art contemporain this spring. Of Bangladeshi descent, Khan used a mix of modern dance and traditional Indian kathak in his pieces. An amazingly sharp yet fluid dancer, Khan's Sounds of Archery was a welcome introduction to this gifted British artist.

Also in the spring, Montreal's b-girl queens Solid State shook things up at Tangente with Etchasketch. A well-constructed, upbeat show with tunes on-stage by DJ Mini kept the audience going and craving more. It was a feel-good performance that showed off this ensemble's impressive growth as a company and made you want to dance all the way home.

A summer dance highlight was definitely Marie Chouinard's Le Sacre du printemps at Le Festival de Lanaudière in Joliette. After driving through pouring rain, drenched spectators frantically scurried to their seats under the refuge of the amphitheatre's roof. As the dancers took the stage, the tension of the choreography was heightened by the brewing storm and crescendo of the staccato raindrops. They were on that night, giving an intense and memorable performance along with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra.

As how 2003 marked a year of the bi-annual Festival international de nouvelle danse (which, sadly, has gone bankrupt and will be sorely missed by all), there was no shortage of dance this fall.

Seeing his choreographies is always a treat, but attending a talk at the Candian Centre for Architecture with American choreographer William Forsythe gave followers extra insight to Forsythe as choreographer and as a person. His company, Ballet Frankfurt, was stunning in performance from the thunderous opening seconds of One Flat Thing, Reproduced - where steel tables were dragged violently across the stage, then dancers skillfully moved on, under and between them while dodging the sharp-corners - to the more tranquil moments of movement between two women in Duo.

There's power in simplicity, believes minimalist British choreographer Jonathan Burrows. In Both Sitting Duet Burrows and composer Matteo Fargion, dressed in street clothes, sat in chairs facing each other on stage at Usine C. What proceeded was a rhythmic hand dance where they read a sort of musical score placed on the floor in front of them and hardly left their seats throughout. This captivating performance left the audience with a better understanding of the widening limits of dance.

Offstage antics

Speaking of limits, dance highlights are in no way restricted to dance venues - they can happen anywhere, from galleries to community centres to lobbies.

Back in April, after the opening night of Bobo in Paradise by French hip hop dance troupe Hush Hush Hush, performers gathered in the lobby of Usine C to jam to the tunes of a boom-box. In this spontaneous, informal setting, local dancers joined in the fun and the crowd got way more for their money when the were treated to the superb second show.

At the closing party of FIND, there was a similar vibe going on at the Portuguese community centre on St-Urbain. Despite the shaky rhythms of the DJ, a circle dance of revellers developed. A hodge-podge of people popped into the middle to strut their personal styles, from members of the Ballet Frankfurt, local dancers and regular folk wanting to get down.

Over at the Darling Foundry, in a makeshift boxing-ring/cockfighting ring, Lee Su-Feh and David Mcintosh of Vancouver's Battery Opera held people with their work Spektator.

If I had had a camera this season, some powerful snapshots I would have taken include a woman from Batsheva Dance Company tracing her body's movements across a chalkboard that stretched across the stage at Place-des-Arts, an advancing wall of people crammed shoulder to shoulder from stage-left to stage-right (En masse by Suzanne Miller and Andrew Forster), and the stunned expressions of the audience when Hooman Sharifi left them in the dark - literally - for at least 10 minutes in As If Your Death Was Your Longest Sneeze Ever. Would've needed a good flash for that one.