IDEAS IN MOTION

When he was younger, Christopher House wanted to be a diplomat and travel to China. As artistic director of the Toronto Dance Theatre, House has been to China a number of times. His modern dances were received there "with an extremely open mind," he says.

Call it diplomacy in action.

The Toronto Dance Theatre will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday at Shryock Auditorium on the campus is SIU in Carbondale, Ill.

House's work has been called kinetic and themeless. He would disagree with the latter adjective. "A piece is always about something," he said in a phone interview from Toronto. "It's always an idea that can't be described in words."

Some of his pieces, though, are pure movement work. "They're really about the fascination of watching wonderful dancers navigate intricate and interesting territory.

"It's watching them take physical risks and risks with their imagination, too," he says.

"... The dance is really being created on the spot."

The Toronto Dance Theatre is one of the best modern dance troupes in Canada, and its school provides the country's top dance instruction. House says that's because modern dance techniques are taught with the same precision that classical ballet schools demand.

But it's freedom that attracts people to modern dance, House acknowledges. He pursues "the power of ambiguity in gesture ... the way that movements and gestures at different points of focus can be combined to suggest multiple points of view and meaning."