The dance solo is almost a genre of its own, showcasing the unique presence of a performer and presenting in tandem both an individual's performance journey and the content of the work itself. When the performer is striking and the material arresting, this can be a profound experience.

Such is the effect of a pair of solo works at Ponec Theater choreographed by Milan Kozánek and Zuzana Kozánková, a Slovak husband-and-wife team from Bratislava. Kozánek has made a solo for a man and Kozánková a solo for a woman, both portraying essential psychological, physical and spiritual transformations. Both are danced by young dancers from Prague of significant personality and expression, and the two pieces work together to offer a provocative contrast of complex masculine and feminine qualities.

Kozánek's Mass is an opulent blend of Bach vocal works with weighty visual symbolism and flowing contemporary dance choreography. Dancer Jaroslav ViŔarský swings from a giant crucifix, sheds rose petals from a long yellow dress, dons lipstick, paints his body and fully undresses to the endlessly rippling vocal soundtrack. The Gothic overload of archetypal imagery is saved by ViŔarský's superlatively fluid and sinuous dancing, unraveling and disarming the crudeness of the images into changing, dreamlike visions.

Kozánková's Cocoon Invisible shows another archetypal journey, as a self-conscious woman evolves from an earthly and primitive creature into realms of encounter with an external object and eventual spiritual grace. Soloist Veronika Šimková, whose series of dramatically changing movement states are all remarkably expressive, says of her personal investment in the work: "My solo is about finding understanding from inner depths. It goes very deep in my personal life, in my personal feelings about myself."

After studying with Kozánková at numerous workshops, Šimková approached her teacher directly. "I really wanted to meet with Zuzana as performer with choreographer, and as two human beings," she says. "In developing this piece with her, I felt very free, like I hadn't for a long time." This freedom is evident in Šimková's exquisitely delicate and vivid performance, which gives rich color to a range of profoundly different emotional, psychological and physical states — from earthbound, weighted contortions to light, springy verticality, flowing through space, and finally to self-contained, conscious presence.