The premiere performance of Malashock Dance in September, 1988, featured a duet that John Malashock co-choreographed and performed with Nancy McCaleb (then of 3's Company). Fierce, combative, and thrilling, the duet, "Dragging the River," remains memorable two decades later. To kick off his 20th anniversary season, Malashock showcased his work in the intimate duet form, presenting 14 pas de deux (or in a few cases, small ensemble works) he created from 1990 to the present. The program, "Let's Duet," ran on Friday and Saturday at Qualcomm Hall, the performance facility at Qualcomm's Sorrento Valley headquarters (a good small-scale dance space and a welcome addition to the venues in town).

With a focus on three- to seven-minute excerpts from longer dances, "Let's Duet" had an hors d'oeuvre feeling rather than Malashock's usual depth. Still, the show displayed his keen dramatic instincts—and perhaps the remnants of a childhood fondness for acrobatic play, like lying on your back and balancing your brother on your raised feet. The 17-year swath of work also connected the newly reviving company with its history. Malashock had scaled back to a pickup troupe for a few years and did only in-progress studio shows last season, while he took the lead in launching Dance Place San Diego at NTC Promenade. Staging a repertory sampler was a smart way to help primarily-new dancers embody his vocabulary and his aesthetic of dance as emotional narrative.

And the newcomers got it, especially Lara Segura and Christine Marshall. The versatile Segura played a witty dominatrix who reduced Michael Mizerany (a company veteran who combines power and intelligence) to groveling in "The Gypsy's Wife" (2002), to a Leonard Cohen lament. Segura was equally convincing in "Broad Waters (Oh Johnny)" (1996); representing Death or Fate, she contended with Marshall for a man's life. Segura won. It's hard to imagine this assured artist doing anything but triumphing.

Marshall, her expression fabulously weary, seemed on the verge of walking out on Mizerany in "Silver and Gold" (2007), but he captured her in one-armed lifts and held her aloft while he lay on his back. Yet the tiny, brittle-looking Marshall held her own, stopping him by planting her foot on his chest. As in the duet with which Malashock introduced his company 19 years ago, there was a delicious sense of danger.

"Silver and Gold," which premiered at MizeranyDance!'s show in September, was the strongest of three recent dances. "Outside the Temple," for a larger ensemble of six, was made for a workshop last summer and had the hodgepodge look of a workshop dance. And an in-progress taste of "Stay the Hand," which premieres next spring, opened intriguingly, with Mizerany and Greg Lane (another ace company vet) seeming alternately wrestlers or contemplatives. But it turned off-putting when they and Sam Mitchell manipulated a somnambulistic Gina Artino and splayed her legs to kingdom come. (In the interest of transparency, seeing a group of men manipulate a woman who looks dead or drugged is a pet peeve.)

Among highlights of the restaged duets, Mizerany and Bradley L. Lundberg never dropped eye contact in the erotic "Face to Face" (2002), and it really sizzled when Mizerany trailed his toes along Lundberg's chest. "The Near Reaches" (1993) looked a tad overwrought, with Lane in a loincloth like a Ruth St. Denis acolyte, but it was beautifully danced—standing almost nose to nose with Lane, lithe Jillian Chu extended one leg and rested her foot on his shoulder, and she managed to make this hamstring-defying feat look sensual. Sadie Weinberg projected intense focus in "Culpa" (1998) as a woman caught in a private sorrow. No wonder Katie Griffin, standing behind her, had to struggle to force her attention.

One negative of seeing so many snippets of dances is that they expose choreographic tics as well as strengths. The "Culpa" motif of a dancer approaching from behind and pushing for a response from another who's oblivious or hostile, occurred in four or five dances. And most of these pieces kept to an adagio or, at most, moderato pace. After a while, I longed for speed and headlong abandon.

And is nearly every relationship doomed to be a power struggle? Well, maybe so. Though Malashock's vision may be dark, it's bracingly uncompromising and complex. How gratifying that, after a hiatus, he is back in the picture as a choreographer and as a director who "drags the river" of emotion with his dancers.

Click for program.