Young viewers get a bang out of Parker’s joy-filled moves

In particular, they ate up Parker’s conceptually brilliant and physically hilarious “Slapstuck’’ and “Nut/Cracked.’’

In “Slapstuck,’’ Parker and Jeffrey Kazin emerge in padded Velcro suits. When they meet, they stick. Kazin smacks into Parker and dangles upside down on his belly, starfish-like, or arcs balletically sideways, attached at the hip. They adhere to themselves, too. Thighs slap together then rip apart, the Velcro creating rhythmic permutations in counterpoint to the pair’s clapping hands and stomping feet. Indeed, the only way they can separate when they sit with legs intermingled is to wriggle out of their pants: It’s funny and poignant simultaneously: Self-differentiation comes at a price.

“Nut/Cracked,’’ Parker’s neo-vaudevillean “Nutcracker,’’ is a series of gifts wrapped in camp that are set to versions of Tchaikovsky’s famous score. Dylan Baker’s tapping toe shoes crack apart the Sugar Plum Fairy variation in circles of light, which he casts with a flashlight. The pellucid Amber Sloan slams onto a rectangle of bubble wrap (we’ve been itching for her to get there!), then contorts and rebounds, launching ricocheting pops against the Glenn Miller Orchestra playing “Waltz of the Flowers.’’

From an adult perspective, not every piece succeeds equally. Excerpts from “Showdown,’’ Parker’s take on Broadway’s “Annie Get Your Gun,’’ run together toward the end. Parker used the piece to explain his process: The dancers establish points of contact (a toe to a finger here, a knee to an ankle there), then build, and “correct,’’ the resulting movement phrases. But as the dance itself progressed, the story didn’t develop, despite the trajectory of Irving Berlin songs.

But no matter. The kids absorbed the message: Moving is a joy, rhythm is its master. Throngs rushed to the stage to bang out their own accompaniment to the Russian Dance from “Nutcracker.’’ Priceless.

Thea Singer can be reached at thea.singer@comcast.net.