Robert Wilson might have named Mary Jane Eisenberg’s inventive new 45-minute suite of dances and processions--performed Saturday afternoon at four locations along the water’s edge in Santa

Monica--”Eisenberg on the Beach.” The Beach Boys would no doubt have titled it “Surfin’ Safari.” Eisenberg herself called it “Boundary Waters,” though her boundaries proved less oceanic than

the sandy distance between lifeguard stations 26 and 24. There Eisenberg would find agreeable spots and dramatically plant poles in the ground--like a _ conquistador _ claiming

territory--after which her retinue of monitors marked out spaces for her dance company Shale and for the hordes of spectators, shutterbugs and video crews who followed the performance from

Fowler’s dauntless six-man trombone band, Eisenberg’s dances began with invocational extensions and a stately sequence deftly abstracting swimming motions. Later came lively mime-based

passages evoking antique sailors’ hornpipes, pop dances associated with surfer music and the same seaside activities (sunbathing, volleyball, pranks with water and wet sand) going on “for

real” only a few yards away. The most complex section involved the six dancers’ frantic, individual activity in and out of the water--the Californian “Let’s Party” syndrome at its most

manic--periodically intercut with collaborative action signaled by blasts of Sousa from the band. After the dancers’ mass exit into the water, many audience members went back to their normal

beach pursuits, unintentionally verifying the work’s accuracy--and possibly becoming the subjects to be satirized in “Boundary Waters II.” There are worse fates. MORE TO READ