Barnes dance is a feather in her cap

The unlikely showgirls of “Fanfare’’ — sporting gaudy feather headdresses atop their working-girl-night-out ensembles — artlessly present themselves to an invisible audience, the cheers from live recordings of Nina Simone performances supplying both the dance’s score and the dancers’ applause. Barnes, Bass, and Bydwell fantasize about their moment in the spotlight and chase it earnestly, though the odds are hilariously stacked against them, mostly because the characters don’t quite have “it.’’ Bass’s long solo — replete with outspread “ta-da!’’ arms, jazz hands, and recital steps that are just a shade off, coordination-wise — is interrupted several times as giant boxes are hurled at her from the wings, metaphoric baggage she must deal with.

In her 2009 solo “Here We Are,’’ Barnes gives her inner dialogue an airing, possibly depicting an impasse in a relationship. Weaving pedestrian movements with dance, she walks with flat-footed emphasis or pauses on one leg, the other lifted and stretched, as if making a point in an argument.

“Another Parade’’ is a remarkably deft theatrical sleight-of-hand. It begins as physical slapstick — the four dancers are compulsively neurotic, shimmying their hips or flashing their bellies and shoulders with a desperation that unwittingly squashes their attempts at sexiness — and blossoms into a beautifully odd catharsis. Though it may sound corny, Barnes — pitch-perfect not only in humor, but in humanness, too, it turns out — seems to invite us all to shed our insecurities and relax, maybe even glory, in our imperfect selves.

Janine Parker can be reached at parkerzab@hotmail.com.