Love, passion, sex, death and resurrection are all timeless themes in the arts, and all were well-represented in a memorable contemporary dance drama by Kansas City native David Parsons. </p><p>On Friday at the Folly Theater, Parsons&rsquo; production of &ldquo;Remember Me&rdquo; played to a sell-out house, thunderous applause and a standing ovation. </p><p>Always innovative, Parsons collaborated with his dancers and the East Village Opera Company to produce a fresh approach to a timeless tale of love and tragedy. Integrating choreography and lighting, Parsons created a landscape of colors, visual illusions and sensual movement. </p><p>The show opened with Parsons&rsquo; 1982 signature piece &ldquo;Caught,&rdquo; performed impressively by Miguel Quinones to music by Robert Fripp. With his muscular frame dressed only in white trousers, on a dark stage with pools of white light, Quinones displayed his mastery of liquid, sinewy body movement. The high point of the performance was the execution of precision leaps perfectly timed with a strong strobe light, giving the illusion of the dancer suspended in flight, then floating on air. </p><p>The next session opened with the featured piece, &ldquo;Remember Me,&rdquo; performed to a suite of selections from various popular works of opera but played in contemporary rock-music style and sung by East Village vocalists Annmarie Milazzo and Tyley Ross. </p><p>The production was a combination of rock opera and dance drama, highlighted with lighting effects and video images projected on a backdrop. </p><p>Raw passion infused the storyline and shaped the choreography. Love, rape and death are themes not foreign to opera, but they are usually more subdued in dance. Parsons, however, tackled this material head-on. </p><p>When taking classical pieces out of context to create a new storyline, the result is often in danger of being pastiche rather than pleasing. In this case, however, reworking the music into rock style allowed the dance storyline to progress seamlessly from one scene to the next. </p><p>This reworking also created an interesting layering of meaning by putting the classical pieces in new contexts. For example, Schubert&rsquo;s &ldquo;Ave Maria&rdquo; was used for the kidnap scene, blending the character&rsquo;s personae (Marie) with a different interpretation of worship and sacrifice. </p><p>To those unaccustomed to current trends in contemporary dance, the choreography may have seemed a bit repetitive and erratic at times. The storyline, however, made the performance compelling even for general audiences. Dance aficionados will be looking with enthusiasm for this performance on DVD.