Most of what we know about the Bauhaus are the streamlined consumer designs and austerely functional architecture, but the same school produced some radically abstracted dance as well. Choreographer Oskar Schlemmer thought about the body the same way Gropius thought about concrete—that you could shape it into something that was both expressive and practical. The dances he created are almost mathematical, using the body to illustrate the drama of the right angle and the languor of the curved line. The performers, in costumes that resemble geometric solids, manipulate sticks and balls, but the rituals they perform are far from child’s play. On a program by the UW’s Chamber Dance Company honoring Alwin Nikolais, whose choreography was often a lighthearted play on these same abstractions, Schlemmer’s work is both fascinating and slightly menacing. SANDRA KURTZ

Oct. 14-16, 7:30 p.m.; Sun., Oct. 17, 2 p.m., 2010