ECCLECTIC GROUP OF STUDENTS TAKES LESSON FROM PARSONS DANCER

In its way, the master class Liz Koeppen taught Wednesday night proved her assurance that everyone can dance.

"It's human nature to be able to dance," the New York City-based dancer says. "Even people who can't move can dance."

The 50 dancers who filled Parker Dance Studio to learn from the Parsons Dance Company rehearsal manager demonstrated varying skills. They included some taking their first dance class, collegiate dance instructors, members of the Southeast Sundancers and gymnasts.

At the end of the hour and a half, she hoped they were sore and had learned a bit more about their bodies. "And I hope they got the essence of the piece," she said. " ... I think they did."

The piece was part of one of Parsons' most famous dances, a comic work called "The Envelope." It will be once of the dances she and the nine other members of the company perform in a concert at 7 tonight at Academic Auditorium. Koeppen also will dance the solo "Caught," one of Parsons' most famous and physically demanding works.

Tonight's concert will offer a "greatest hits" program because this is the company's first performance here.

David Parsons, a Kansas City native, has developed dance techniques that are very physical. "This is an animal position," Koeppen instructed the dancers at one point. "You're wide like a hawk." Another time she congratulated their performance by saying, "We looked very uniform. Balanchine would have been very happy."

Born in Virginia Beach, Va., Koeppen says dancing really chose her. "I was pretty much born to dance without knowing it until I was 16 or 17." She knows she felt something special the first time she was on stage, playing a pirate.

The 33-year-old has been with the company 11 of its 13 years, winning a spot over 300 other women in an audition just after graduating from the State University of New York-Purchase.

Parsons dancers have certain characteristics in common. "They are very malleable, yet they have a strong and expressive body," she says.

There's one thing more. "You've got to have a spark, that something special."

She is happy that Americans now are cultivating a flexible ideal of fitness reflected in yoga and the exercise techniques pioneered by Joseph Pilates rather than pumping up their bodies. Even Tae Bo, the popular boxing-based fitness routine, illustrates this approach, she says.

Koeppen allows that dancers are different from the rest of us in one way. "We seem to know a lot and feel a lot more about our bodies," she says.