The brilliance of "40up," DancenOw's selection of choreographers and/or dancers over 40, opened this year's festival, which ran September 4-10 at Dance Theater Workshop. The potpourri presaged an upcoming season of larger-than-life modern and contemporary dance, and led us into the festival in its totality - 70-plus works, each seven minutes or less.

In an excerpt from "Throw People" by Chris Elam, to music by Andy Tierstein, Elam, Coco Karol, and Luke Gutgsell dance, with clownish awkwardness, in leotards with fuzzy chenille trim accentuating the choice places. Karol wears cutoff fishnet tights. The costumes match their pale skin, in very bright light. The performers, punishingly acrobatic, move as a close-knit or knotted group. Their irreverent approach to lifts, and to dance in fact, is sophisticated entertainment, art that doesn't take itself too seriously. Hence, we're compelled by the serious in it.