Dance: Seattle's Young Spellbinder

The title alone is provocative: Soap-Powders and Detergents. Will this be some arch exercise with dancers dressed up as bubbles or boxes? A soggy bit of social criticism? A spoof on Balanchine's Snowflake Waltz in The Nutcracker? No, Mark Morris' latest creation, commissioned by Dance Umbrella of Cambridge, Mass., is a lighthearted, structurally elegant look at washday.

The dancers somewhat resemble fresh laundry themselves in their loose white costumes. Lying on the floor, they suggest the rotating wash cycle by briskly waving their arms and legs. Later, as the action speeds up, they swing rolled- up sheets that churn around Penny...