Diavolo puts a new spin on dreams

It shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with the stylish, architecturally driven local group Diavolo Dance Theater to learn that its latest creation, “DreamCatcher,” stars a large, silver Ferris-wheel-looking thing that tilts and eventually whirls like a high-art carnival ride. Over the years, in collaboration with his athletic dancers, artistic director Jacques Heim has created a series of dreamlike works that depend on giant set pieces.

Making its debut at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center on the campus of Cal State Long Beach on Friday night, the wheel was a focal point for dancers to climb on, drop from, and sometimes, dodge.

“DreamCatcher” is named for the circular webs that filter dreams in Native American mythology. Like a Cirque du Soleil production, it has an electronic score, by Nathan Wang, featuring moody synthesized climaxes, shimmering cymbals and a variable percussive heartbeat; and it is a progression of scenes based on physical motifs -- climbing, becoming entwined, swinging, and, on the ground, leaping or tumbling. It too has just a taste of updated circus whimsy (a clever pas de trois featuring a man, a woman and a trumpet); and dancers share the spotlight with props, smoke and other things that spin.

“DreamCatcher” also foregrounds a display of mildly athletic feats and stylish writhing in chiffon, mottled jumpsuits and bare skin, yet with far less conceptual and physical intrigue than Cirque’s best.

Some eye-catching images do emerge -- for instance, when the dreamer, C. Derrick Jones, crosses the stage in a wind-facing lean and keeps getting pulled back by a wire. Occasionally, he meets up with a daredevil companion (Monica Campbell), but no sense of an ordeal or journey emerges. The giant wheel, on the other hand, does transform, losing its springy spokes, gaining a gyroscope and losing its interior apparatus so performers can dangle and spin on attached ropes.

Evan Ritter’s spectacular lighting includes beams of angular and diffused light, sometimes joined by blinding rays shooting from hand-held devices. That’s as stylish and deep as things get.