The second Sedona Dance Festival, organized by the Sedona Dance Project, took place at the Sedona Performing Arts Center on May 3.

First on the evening’s program was the clever and well executed “Aham: The Beautiful Self,” which blended classical Indian dance technique with a contemporary theme and thematic approach. Two dancers in saris opposed each other on either side of what appeared at first to be a doorframe on wheels, but which, it emerged, was in fact a mirror, in which one dancer was the reflection of the other. They circled round and round the frame, a girl dancing with her reflection in a state of indecisiveness, until the reflection finally crossed through the mirror to inspire and motivate her counterpart. A finely-executed piece with effective mime and acting, it succeeded in terms of both overall conception and small details of technique.

The Indians were followed by the Irish in a “Dance of the Druids” choreographed by festival founder Danielle McNeal-Strabala that was at least as Dionysian as Druidic in its visual conception and was performed with beautiful swift ascendant motions by the students of the Sedona Dance Academy in a poetic whirl that was all too brief. The hyper-modern “Work in Progress” then confronted the audience with a massive contrast to the prior classicism. Its two rather discombobulated dancers kept switching off roles, coming across as disorganized explorers who were unsure of where they were going but who were nonetheless filled with joy in their movement for its own sake and doing a great job of representing the music with their bodies.

“Inner Sanctum on the Outside of My Sleeve” was less impressive than the opening numbers. It was not just another piece about internal travail, but also another repetition of the “box” stereotype in modern dance and theatre: A square spotlight projected an imaginary cell around a dancer in red who was wandering, stumbling, stretching and shadow-boxing around the imaginary confines of the space, complete with heavy breathing, a combination intended to convey that it was an external representation of the character’s subjective problems. Following the performance, choreographer Marko Westwood described the piece as an attempt to express the feelings of a person who felt themselves to be the only sane individual in a mad world — but such a representation is exactly the opposite of how such individuals react. From their perspective, they are not driven to frenzy by a feeling of being trapped in a box, but rather by the horrific understanding that everyone else is trapped in boxes they themselves have created with their complacent minds, and by the need to break those individuals out of their masochistic mental prisons.

“Gathering” offered another rendering of a soloist’s despair, accompanied by apparent spirits of light and darkness, although some in the audience interpreted it as a representation of a dying cancer patient. A thoroughly modern nymph, complete with type writer, was the star of “At Dawn,” which revived a prior open-air performance choreographed by Candy Jimenez. “Only this moment of dawn is real to me … I cast a spell on the city asking it to last,” the nymph intoned before floating around her green lit cavern, swimming slowly through her wind chimes before being rudely disturbed by a crow and drifting out of the picture, stage right. In a distinct contrast of mood, “Raised on Little Light” incorporated cartwheels, twirls and clean, youthful exuberance from seven plaid-clad dancers performing with little lights on their wrists, like patron fireflies.

The second act opened with a highly striking presentation of Desert Dance Theatre’s “Journey of the Shadow Walkers.” While choreographer Anandha Ray said the piece was inspired by the Trail of Tears, among other historical events, and it certainly could be understood more broadly as a general treatment of exile, expulsion or exodus, it also came across as a metaphor for the entire evolution of behaviorally-modern human culture. Amerindian-style chants echoed around two groups of zombie-costumed dancers, one standing rigid and unmoving across the rear of the stage, watchful silhouettes, the other striding endlessly forward toward the audience in constant motion across a lonely savannah. One by one, these dancers would be struck by inspiration or obsession, reaching for the heavens with raised hands — the discovery of religion? — delve into the dirt with their hands — the discovery of agriculture and manufacturing? — and then consume it or inhale it, or breathe it into one another’s faces, reanimating one another — the creation of culture through transmission of knowledge. Sometimes they would fall out in death before reincarnating back into the group. Minimalist in design, it was extraordinary in execution.

A number of subsequent short pieces intervened between the major opening and closing works of the act. “People’s Windows” by Shayna da Cruz was aerobatic and well executed without a great many ideas, while “Support, Love, Hope” presented a very literal representation of four pioneer girls catching and lifting each other and forming a wall in solidarity. “Gravity of Impermanence” featured two painters at easels depicting two different stages in the life of a father and his two daughters, echoing the lyrics of the music, the whole setting a lament for the loss of a father. The design worked, the dance was sufficiently well-performed, but there was no apparent connection between the setting and the dance.

Two solos by Sedona Dance Academy founder Jessica Phillips and instructor Eric Lindemer were much stronger. Lindemer, dancing to “That’s Life” by Frank Sinatra, offered an upbeat portrait of successful determination and an effective expression of the lyrics that he conveyed with the elegance and energy natural to a former Boston Ballet dancer. “Drift” saw Phillips rising from the ocean floor, seemingly hanging weightless in invisible water just above the stage in a very impressive demonstration of strength and control, before coming ashore to dance a powerful, insurgent number that she delivered with a fluidity appropriate to the theme, her body moving with the ease of the water itself.

The festival closed with “Light Shared,” also choreographed by McNeal-Strabala for the occasion, which guest-starred local musicians Tyler Carson on violin and Nic Leo on piano performing a Galician-inspired piece they had composed for the festival. As dark figures grasped awkwardly for the sky against the dim light of a blue and-purple aurora, Carson arrived with his violin to dance with his audience, bringing more and more light onto the scene as he played and transforming their movement to something freer. Looking the part of the guru in white, he serenaded them with impassioned, sensual music until they began to form a spinning circle around him in fascination. In a sense, he led a silent chorus from the soloist’s position. The result was beautifully constructed, multidisciplinary and just plain cool.