Vicky Smith Paluch wrote, on the day of the Oct. 3 performance::

"Ten dollars for any seat in the house at the Orange County Performing Arts Center's Segerstrom Hall sounds too good to believe. That admission fee to the Fall for Dance Festival, this week - through Sunday - is the biggest bargain of the dance season.

The festival is offering a marvelous selection of dance works from pioneers of modern dance and their 21st century progeny to those from India and Mexico. Each of the two programs features five distinctive dance companies. Some of the dances reflect upon the human condition, art and the serious issues confronting society while others simply offer a reason to rejoice.

Plain old classical ballet with tutus, however, is missing. (Never fear, balletomanes, the venerable Kirov Ballet will move into Segerstrom Hall for its engagement, next Tuesday through Oct. 12, during which it will dance "Don Quixote" and "Giselle.")

By presenting several companies on a single program, the center is able to show each company to its best advantage, said Judy Morr, OCPAC's executive vice-president.

And for a general admission ticket price of $10, Morr said she hopes

 Tonight

BeijingDance/LDTX; Trisha Brown Dance Company, Madhavi Mudgal, Compania Nacional de Danza and The National Ballet of Canada.

The Trisha Brown Dance Company tonight will explore the lines of dance and the architecture of Segerstrom Hall in Brown's 1973 work, "Spanish Dance."

As a modern dance innovator, Brown was a founding member of the avant-garde Judson Dance Theater in the 1960s. She branched out to form her own company in 1970. Her choreography is noted for its purity of movement, and her desire to make the construction of a dance fully visible to the audience.

"Spanish Dance," is set to Bob Dylan's rendition of "Early Morning Rain," a song written by Gordon Lightfoot. In the work, five women walk the length of the stage. Spaced evenly apart, each stands in profile, until one after another, arms arching up in the most magnificent Spanish body-arch, reaches her neighbor's back, spurring her into identical movement. This unfolding reaches a funny and inevitable end: a Rube Goldberg construction with bodies.

"It's very funny and very strict," noted the 71-year-old choreographer. "By the end, the audience can see what's going to happen."

BeijingDance/LDTX (which stands for Lei Dong Tian Xia or "thunder moves under the sky") will open the festival with an excerpt from "The Cold Dagger" by China's leading contemporary choreographer Willie Tsao. "The Cold Dagger" likens life to a game of chess with the dancers moving as life-sizes pieces in this intricately choreographed match.

The life-and-death theme is continued by National Ballet of Canada in "Soldiers' Mass," a 1980 ballet by Jiri Kylian. Set to the music Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu wrote at the outbreak of World War II, the ballet for 12 men is a tribute to and a remembrance of the young soldiers of all wars.

"Soldiers' Mass came into our repertoire in 1995, " said Karen Kain, the company's artistic director and former prima ballerina. "It is time to put on a work that says something about war."

 I would have loved to have had more program notes about the text of "Soldier's Mass", which is very dynamic in pacing and mood changes, but abstract enough to leave us as mere spectators in some passages. Overall, the theme is evident, and heartbreaking. Especially as many young people in America are hearing about current legislation calling for both a military and civilian draft (for both male and female citizens).

The exquisite artistry of Odissi style Indian classical dancer Madhavi Mudgal and her neice Arushi Mudgal was breath-taking. With her five musicians, the Pravaha performance was, literally, entrancing. It was being invited into another realm entirely.

 Ana Maria Lopez Huerst and Francisco Lorenzo  were fluid and hypnotically connected in "Cor Perdut", choreographed by Nacho Duato, to a Catalan version of the song "Bir Demet Ysemen", sung by M del Mar Bonet.

 Applause and cheers were enthusiastic from the full-house audience at the beautiful theater. A panel discussion followed with performers and directors on stage. The questions from those who stayed had mostly to do with the choreographic process. Panelists were friendly and forth-coming. The center then ran a super-slow-motion film of dancers and choreographers outside, "Slow Dancing", by David Michalek. The images were about three storeys high, projected onto on one of the complex walls.