Like the reassuring promise of a baby laughing, the intoxication of falling in love or the smell of the smoldering remains confronting so many in Southern California, Bausch’s passionate, laser-focused danceworks involve visceral components that must be experienced because they exceed words, no matter how descriptive. This is true in part because of her extraordinarily talented international crew of dancer/actors, but also because Bausch creates an evocative world that involves many senses. Past visits brought us dance floors filled with autumn leaves, adding percussive punctuation to each movement; another time she filled the stage with tons of peat moss, permeating the theater with the smell of fresh earth as if we were watching dancers in another, more primitive world. Since her ground-breaking local debut during the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival, sunny, health-conscious, sometimes superficial SoCal has responded enthusiastically to each visit from this small, chain-smoking, reality-obsessed German choreographer. This visit she is presenting Ten Chi; performed on a stage spilling over with cherry blossoms and a whale fin, the piece references the contradictions of contemporary culture in Japan, where the work was created in 2004. And like Bausch’s other pieces, it will confront the audience with a sense of the physical world beyond the performance hall — an apt experience at a time when so many have recently witnessed the power of nature unleashed. UCLA Royce Hall, Wstwd.; Thurs.-Sat., Nov. 8-10, 8 p.m.; Sun., Nov. 11, 2 p.m.; $38-$76. (310) 825-2101 or www.UCLAlive.org.

—Ann Haskins

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