Theater UAF's Student Drama Association will show its Fall 2006 Winter Shorts beginning with a free preview on Thursday in the UAF Salisbury Lab Theatre.

This season includes Ground Squirrel Improv Troupe, the one-man show "Tantrums" and the Butoh dance piece "Cacophony."

"Cacophony" will be directed by Benjamin Coffroth, a senior theater student.

"It will definitely be one of the weirdest and most exciting things Fairbanks has ever seen," Coffroth said. "It is an exploration of sound using movement and silence."

Butoh is style of dance with roots in the 1950s. It mixes dance, theater, and improvisation together.

Some of the Butoh dancers performed a preview Thursday. Adam Gillette, Fiona Lundquist, and Hadassah Nelson were dressed in all-white costumes, with their faces, hair, arms and bare feet painted white.

Coffroth, the group's spokesperson, accompanied them in partial costume. The dancers moved silently in their slow and steady quiet dance from the Arts Complex, through Constitution Park and Wood Center, and back.

In their silence, snow white skin and hair, vacant expressions, half open mouths, their slow hovering, swaying dance seemed like the movements of the undead, but more graceful, like the haunting of ghosts but with movements more defined.

They moved steadily on, apparently unaware of anything around them, slumping, straightening, moving their arms like tree branches. The only sounds they made were their pronounced breathing, the occasional gasp punctuating their movements, or a strong exhaling.

Crowds gathered around to watch the performers, forming a loose circle some distance from them. Reactions from onlookers varied.

Some were taken aback by the white, ghostly appearance of the dancers.

"They're like, freaky," said Jarraine Tickett, one of the students watching the dancer's progress.

Another student, Justin Priest, remarked, "I feel like I have to whisper around them."

Some of the watchers, like Ashley Berndt, regarded the dancers with laughter.

"It makes me laugh. I couldn't keep a straight face to save my life," she said, "They're doing a great job."

Others simply looked on in wonderment and awe.

"They're amazingly in character, it's fantastic!" said Ryann Buckman. "I definitely couldn't do that."

Some merely pulled out their digital cameras and camera phones.

Among the comments heard from passersby, many were about the drool. Strings of saliva hung from the open mouths of the dancers who continued on, unnoticing.

Also performing in the Butoh are Anna Gagne-Hawes and Jey Johnson. The dancers will be performing to a sound mix created by Troll.

Also showing in this fall's Winter Shorts are the return of the local the Ground Squirrel Improv, the one-man show "Tantrums" performed by Michael Shaeffer, and an intermission art show featuring (but not selling) the art of students and local artists.

Ground Squirrel Improv, which started in the spring of 2006, has some new members along with the original ones. Their act is all about entertaining and making the audience laugh.

Michael Shaeffer is a national poetry slammer from Alaska and, according to the theater department, his show is "of irreverent rhymes and curious anecdotes about garrulous giants, one-armed bear hunters, and finicky zombies."

The Fall Winter Shorts will be run Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and again Oct. 6 and 7. Thursday is free, and Friday's showing is free for students with a Polar Express card. The showing on Oct. 7 is family friendly. Prices are $5 for general admission and $3 for students.