The forces that shape a girl as she navigates the bumpywaters of adolescence is a persistent theme in Gina Angelique's passionate,socially aware choreography.

Her "Alice Lost Wonderland," an imaginative reinterpretationof Lewis Carroll's classic tale, brought to vivid life the confusing, dazzlingand often painful experience of growing up. Angelique's surreal imageryshrewdly unveiled her heroine's growing awareness of the world.

And her earlier "Soul of a Young Girl . . . Dances ofAnne Frank," which will be restaged next year, also delved into the shadowsof a girl's harrowing coming-of-age.

With "Soulos . . . Silver," seen over the weekend at the(chilly, bring a blanket) Broadway Pier, Angelique takes up a similar theme,using the sea as a malleable metaphor for the perils and joys of life.Subtitled "a dance play about four fish out of water," the new work isthe third in a series of solos set to contemporary music and aimed at ayounger, nontraditional dance audience. Her earlier installments, "Soulos. . . Periwinkle" and "Soulos . . . Red," explored emotions associatedwith the colors of their titles.

In "Soulos . . . Silver," Angelique once again createsa total theater experience. A tour guide, Maggie Castranova (looking likea park ranger), beckons prospective viewers with a megaphone. Later, shesolicits volunteers to hand and throw props to dancers Nikki Dunnan, ErickaMoore, Pauline Narciso and Jessica Valdez.

At first, the harbor setting, with its dramatic views,constant boat traffic and bracing wind, steals focus from the performers,who roll from the shadows as if from the watery depths onto the dimly lightedstage. Soon, though, the dancers -- clad in goggles and yellow and orangeskins and adorned in body paint -- get the audience's attention by trading"Your Momma" jokes like approval-seeking adolescent boys. After a barrageof insults, they shed those personas by shaking their heads in a dizzying,compulsive fashion and crumpling into gestures that suggest vulnerability.Relinquishing inauthentic voices, they begin to discover, painfully atfirst, truer forms of self-expression. And they eventually shed their skinsas well, in a symbolic throwing off of the yoke of parental authority.Angelique's expressionistic choreography is sometimes too literal here.It's the price she pays artistically -- and, it would seem, deliberately-- for communicating. "Soulos . . . Silver" is nothing if not accessible;even the small children at Friday night's show responded vocally to thedancers' physical humor. Mostly, though, there are images of arrestingbeauty, as when Moore, dancing with geometric abandon to a Tom Waits song,evokes a sailor's shore- bound longing for the sea. Another tantalizingtableau arrives when Dunnan takes the helm of an antique ship's wheel andthe other dancers weave their bodies through the spokes, flailing as ifcaught. Such images of entrapment recur throughout the piece -- hooks hangcreepily from mouths, prostrate bodies twist as if in pain. At other times,the dancers break free, as when they perform, to avant-garde jazz rhythms,an exuberant, floor-bound boogie-woogie.

Here and elsewhere, Angelique's choreography subvertsmodern-dance traditions to riot grrl purposes; for the San Diego dance-maker,feminist politics and hell-raising are all of a piece. The choreographyis also interwoven with the dancers' poetic musings and recollections ofyouthful injuries that sometimes sound more therapeutic than artisticallynecessary. Yet the women's honesty in these moments also cuts to the core.

Valdez's dance with a flowing scarf -- sometimes stuffedin her mouth, sometimes draped over her head -- taps suffering and loss,but also pure joy. It's a solo that Isadora Duncan might have danced --one woman's journey through life. And Dunnan's antagonistic solo with ablood-red scarf connects with the dark side of American girlhood. Stuffingthe scarf down her throat and vomiting it back up, she offers a fiercedirge to the self-destructive impulse that haunts so many young women.

In the end, when the dancers gather at the back of thestage, turning to face the ocean, the natural setting floods back in, connectingmeaningfully with their journey. It's a credit to Angelique's choreographyand the dancers' passionate skill that the audience has been transportedalong with them.

** Choreographer: Gina Angelique. Costumes: Lolie Araujo.Set and lighting: Christopher Hall. Cast: Ericka Moore, Nikki Dunnan, JessicaValdez, Pauline Narciso.

DANCE REVIEW

"Soulos . . . Silver"

Continues 8 p.m. Friday-Sunday. Broadway Pier, downtown.$5-$10 (donation); (619) 238-1153.