India’s Nrityagram Dance Ensemble brought Odissi – the dance form native to the Orissa region of India – to the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts on Friday night. Like much of Indian dance, Odissi began as temple rite, yet its projection of spirituality incorporates the carnal in a way that differs greatly from the Western dance aesthetic.

A form like Odissi can be seen as the polar opposite of classical ballet, which conforms to the Western belief that spirituality relies on a renunciation of the corporeal. At Friday night’s performance, the bodies were earthy and compact; the five women of the ensemble wore fixed, trance-like expressions that suggested both rapture and coquettish invitation. Their hips were splayed in a way that signifies in the West casual colloquialism or erotic availability, their legs bent in a squat second position.

Destroyed by the Raj, Odissi was reconstructed after India’s independence. It may be that Nrityagram’s artistic director and choreographer, Surupa Sen, has made a freer and more Western-influenced translation of Odissi. But tradition still reigns. On one side of the Skirball stage was an effigy of Krishna, presiding deity of Odissi. On the other side were seated musicians and singers, whose skirling tonalities accompanied the dance. The dancers’ adornment – rattling ankle bracelets – made additional aural accompaniment.

The first half of the program consisted of three pieces for the superb ensemble. Ms. Sen’s choreography expertly interwove solo figures with ensemble so that the five members seemed like a microcosm. With chains of two and three dancers, she established a call-and-response dynamic between them. All five would combine, hold hands and freeze in a tableau, and then an outrider would again emerge.

Crucial to the kinetic articulation was the dancers’ ability to isolate the movement of different limbs or extremities. The full circular revolution of the women’s torsos was echoed with comparable head shimmers and swivels. The full circular revolution of the women’s torsos was echoed with comparable head shimmers and swivels. Their arms whirled and curved, but sometimes were braced in contrasting angles: One arm up, one arm down. Sometimes the leg was brought to the knee, sometimes it extended forward in classic Shiva pose, but more frequently it was turned in – in an attitude position. There were not many jumps, making all the more dramatic the occasional floor-to-air sallies in which a dancer would spring up from sitting position. Toes were frequently upturned and emphasized their connection to the floor by taps and drags.

Stories were sometimes threaded into the fabric of these pieces, but the second half of the program, which included the premiere of Ms. Sen’s “Sacred Space,” consisted of a dance cycle with an explicit narrative. The dances were inspired by poems from the “Geet Govind,” written in Sanskrit in the 12th century. The “Geet Govind” describes the separations and reunions of Krishna with his eternal consort, Radha. Their fusion was symbolized by the opening pose, in which a dancer shifted weight from one leg to the other, each shift accompanied by a parallel alternation in pose, both Krishna and Radha.

Each of the four dances in “Sacred Space” had a spoken introduction, during which the dancer illustrated the poem in the Indian gesture vocabulary, the mudras.The plot was then expand ed upon in dance. Radha mourned Krishna’s absence and his fickleness, until he finally arrived. Following some discord, tranquility reigned.

This suite of dances was rather different from those in the first part of the program; they were more dramatic monologues. After the spoken introductions, the dancers continued to employ illustrative gestures, but with less of the formality in mudras. Positions were more sustained, less rapidly shifting than in the first half of the program. Lines became more elongated as the suite of dances progressed from beseeching and imploring toward the grandeur of a romantic apotheosis. After the opening epigraph in mudras, the pieces were less rooted in gesture, but the extremities continued to register emotional states, palpitating arms signifying erotic anticipation.

The fourth and final movement of “Sacred Space” described rapprochement between Krishna and. Radha, performed respectively by Ms. Sen and Bijayini Satpathy. They faced opposite corners then faced each other, then turned away again but began moving towards each other. Ms. Sen supported Ms. Satpathy in a backbend.Their arms entwined overhead, heads turned to look at each other. The final pose of the evening deployed an interesting schematic: Radha stood over Krishna, her leg planted on his. The formerly lamenting woman was now dominant.