Time goes quickly at the Dance Alloy. At a recent rehearsal for its spring concert, three decades pass by in the space of an hour or so. The decades -- the '80s, '90s and '00s -- are each represented by choreography from the Alloy's history: "Dancing to Music," a stately piece by Victoria Marks; "Damage/Love's Demise" by Mark Taylor, and "At Once There Was a House" by new artistic director Beth Corning. Taylor and Mark returned to reset their work on the new company, which makes its major concert debut Friday with "4 works, 4 decades, 4 nights -- Resurrection at the Alloy." The show, which runs Friday through Monday at the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater, was conceived by Corning as a reunion. She felt it was important to give props to her predecessors, who nurtured the company from its experimental beginnings to an arts eminence with full-time dancers on the payroll. "I think that, intuitively, I knew that I didn't feel it was appropriate to come on the scene with this big bang, that there were these things that needed to be acknowledged," Corning says. "It's about the fact that I wouldn't be sitting here if it hadn't been for the other people who came before me." Those people include former co-artistic directors Elsa Limbach and Susan Gillis, who co-founded the Alloy in 1976 with six other dancers, each with an equal say. Marks, now an associate professor in the Department of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA, helped define the '80s at the Alloy. The '90s belonged to Mark Taylor, who served as artistic director from 1991 to 2003. "When Beth called me and said, 'Gee, Susan, can you reconstruct something you did in the '70s?' I started laughing," Gillis says. "I said, 'I can't remember what we did in the '70s.' We had nothing to record it." Limbach and Gillis -- dubbed "The '70s Ladies" -- open the show by creating a new work based on their memories of the Alloy's first baby steps. "Selective Memory" is a trio of duets co-choreographed with charter Dance Alloy member Laurie Tartar. "It's about remembering and how the process of recalling something that is past is not always straightforward, and that memory is sometimes selective or piecemeal or fractured," Limbach says. For Taylor, it was strange setting a dance on an almost entirely new set of bodies. Only dancer Michael Walsh remains from his era as artistic director. He'll perform with new dancers Cass Ghiorse, Maribeth Maxa, Stephanie Thiel and apprentice Jonathan Sanchez. "It's always a process," Taylor says. "When learning repertory there's always a learning curve where, for a while, they're sort of trying to be other people. All of a sudden, something clicks and they kind of cast that off. You always hold your breath and hope it's going to happen." Luckily, it did. For co-founder Gillis, now a dance instructor at the University of Pittsburgh, Corning's spirit of inclusion hearkens back to the Alloy's early days. "Everybody had a shot at choreographing as well as dancing" she says. "That's why we started out as repertory company, because everybody wanted to do different work instead of doing the work of just one person. That's why it was called the Alloy. You mix a lot of different things together and now it's strong." Alloy products In its 29 years, the Dance Alloy has produced works by more than 65 choreographers, including those commissioned form Bill T. Jones , Tere O'Connor , Victoria Marks , Mark Taylor , Charles Moulton , Douglas Nielson , Elizabeth Streb , Eiko & Koma , Mark Dendy , Lynn Dally and Victoria Marks . They've also produced at least two marriages -- between dancers Michele de la Reza and Peter Kope , who later founded Attack Theatre , and Jennifer Keller and Dennis Birkes . Keller is now a faculty member in the dance department at Slippery Rock University. Not bad for a company that began as an artists collective with no fixed address. "I'm thrilled that it's lasted this long," says co-founder Elsa Limbach . "I know it's certainly not been an easy journey, but the company has been very tenacious in all its incarnations." The Dance Alloy made its debut in 1976 at the Stephen Foster Memorial. Each of the eight dancers in the company had an equal say and was afforded the opportunity to choreograph work. Everyone pitched in to run lights, set up chairs and staple posters to telephone poles. Rehearsal space was borrowed from the Trees Hall at the University of Pittsburgh, thanks to the faculty connections of members Margaret Scribder and Susan Gillis . Needless to say, nobody got paid. Early benefactors were the Pittsburgh Foundation and the Pittsburgh Dance Council . "When this company started, there wasn't much of a modern dance scene in Pittsburgh," Gillis says. "It was kind of a new era, and lots of fun things were happening. When you have a company that was small with such a small budget, you get to learn a lot of things about running a company. That was a really valuable experience." Gillis and Limbach became co-artistic directors., with Limbach assuming the role herself in 1984. Mark Taylor became the Alloy's second artistic director in 1991. He moved to Pittsburgh from New York, where he ran his own dance company, Mark Taylor and Friends, for 10 years. During his tenure with the Alloy he created more than 30 new works. The Alloy performed at the Byham Theater as part of the Pittsburgh Dance Council's 2002-03 season. The company continues to maintain a strong community presence, conducting residencies at local high schools, touring and teaching jazz, yoga and pilates classes at the Neighborhood Dance Center in Friendship. -- William Loeffler Additional Information:

Details

'4 works, 4 decades, 4 nights -- Resurrection at the Alloy' Presented by: The Dance Alloy. When: 8 p.m. Friday through Sunday; 7 p.m. Monday. Where: Kelly-Strayhorn Theater, 5941 Penn Ave., East Liberty. Admission: $20; $15 students and senior citizens; pay-as-you-can on Monday. Post performance black-tie benefit will be Saturday. Cost is $100 and includes tickets to the show, champagne and strolling dinner. Details: (412) 363-4378

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