Constrictive situations or outright oppression can provoke effective alternative responses beyond escape or battle. (In other words, when you're cornered, you can either surrender or invent creative “alternative” to survive.) That's the theme of Fight or Flight, three new dance works from L.A. Contemporary Dance Company. Choreographer Adam Parson uses this concept to show how Kenyan women transcend their subservient roles by pretending to fetch water but instead attending school to learn to read. LACDC artistic director Kate Hutter's theme is teenage apathy and the forces that energize it. Looking to the past, Scott Hislop uses the exaggerated corseted clothing of the aristocracy in pre-Revolutionary France to show cultural restrictions that are peeled off along with layers of fabric and padding. Although choreographer Jyri Kylian addressed the subject in his much-admired 1991 ballet Petite Mort, Hislop promises to bring his own, perhaps more contemporary perspective to the topic.

Fri., Dec. 11, 8 p.m.; Sat., Dec. 12, 8 p.m.; Sun., Dec. 13, 8 p.m.; Fri., Dec. 18, 8 p.m.; Sat., Dec. 19, 8 p.m.; Sun., Dec. 20, 8 p.m., 2009

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