On which stage can you find a giant hoop in motion, billowing fabric resembling errant clouds or rogue waves, or a thick web of elastic bands being manipulated to create giant spider webs?

The answer is Kennedy Theatre, beginning this weekend when the UH dance department presents "Dance: Connection and Extension," a program that highlights the interaction of dancers with nondance elements (music, video, props, light).

In a recent interview, Betsy Fisher, director of this year's production, was enthusiastic about both the dances and the current crop of dancers, whom she praised for their commitment and talent. More than 50 dancers will participate in the performances, which feature three premieres and a handful of revivals of historically important works from several masters of American modern dance.

A hula choreographed for the concert by Noenoelani Zuttermeister Lewis and using a full range of traditional implements opens the program, followed by a balletic work created in 1993 by Eve Walstrum Sanders, one of the state's most gifted choreographers. Set to Brahms' "Variations on a Theme by Joseph Haydn," it promises to display not only superb choreography but also outstanding dancing by a quintet of students.

A special treat will be the suite of four early works from the Denishawn tradition. The short studies, choreographed between 1919 and 1936, show the roots of American dance. Using numerous props including a long silk scarf (Doris Humphrey's "Valse Caprice Scarf Dance," 1919) and a large hoop (Humphrey's "Hoop Dance," 1924), the suite concludes with "Soaring" (1920), choreographed by Humphrey and Ruth St. Denis, which features a 20-by-20-foot piece of China silk fabric manipulated by five dancers. The decorative art nouveau quality and ingenious use of objects in these works offer young dancers an excellent opportunity to get a taste of their rich heritage.

To round out the suite, there is a male solo, "Banner Bearer," a section of "Olympiad," created by Ted Shawn for his all-male dance company and premiered in 1936, the year of the Berlin Olympics.

These pieces are timeless, as is evident at a rehearsal. After a run-through, Fisher advised the students to give it their all. "If you hold back a little, it looks corny. You really have to get into it completely. I think it's a question of ecstasy."

The second half of the program includes two premieres: Fisher's "some ideas about light," to a commissioned score by Ernest Provencher and lighting designed by Dan Anteau; and "Tangrams," choreographed by recent guests Karl Schaffer and Erik Stern.

The program concludes with Alwin Nikolais' 1953 masterpiece, "Tensile Involvement," which uses eight long, elastic bands suspended from high in the wings. Dancers create webs and giant cats' cradles, frames that pivot and a variety of magical lines through, over and into which they move. Nikolais' own electronic tape music was the height of invention for its time.