Preview: On the Boards presents 'Alaska,' all the way from South America

Each autumn, when On the Boards' International Series begins, it's like Artistic Director Lane Czaplinski has stacked a woodshed full of distinctive, provocative performers that will fuel the mainstage theater with burning images to beat against the long, dark winter.

But until this year, OTB's international lineup had yet to feature any of South America's hot young artists. "And it's not for lack of trying," says Czaplinski. "There are certain geographies that are just hard to tap."

This season, Czaplinski's persistence prevailed: Two South American choreographers will appear. Diana Szeinblum from Buenos Aires appears this weekend with a piece entitled "Alaska," and in January, Bruno Beltrão and his company Grupa de Rua will arrive from Rio de Janeiro.

Though he's clearly excited to present Beltrão's hip-hop troupe, it was Szeinblum who was foremost on Czaplinski's radar. He saw the Pina Bausch-trained artist in 2003, in a dance-theater work performed in Austin that is "still one of my favorite performances of all time," he says. "The women were beautiful and it just packed this real psychological wallop ... I think she places bodies and moves bodies in service of some sort of a narrative — probably drawn from emotions and feelings ... It doesn't seem to rely on as many devices, as much outlandishness [as Bausch]."

"Alaska," her current piece, features four performers, including Szeinblum, wearing pedestrian clothes, performing on a bare stage. Off to the side, two musicians perform a subtle, Philip Glass-style score with piano, violin and laptop.

"Diana always starts with a question or idea," Czaplinski says. For "Alaska," he says, she asked the dancers to figure out a movement response to a potent past event they'd never been able to respond to.

Expect a reply that is as succulent and feverish as they come.