Rachel Berman Benz lives in New York and travels the world with the Paul Taylor Dance Company. Photos by George F. Lee, Star-Bulletin

The self-proclaimed local girl and professional dancer with the Paul Taylor Dance Company is in the islands for concerts tomorrow and Saturday night at the Hawaii Theatre Center.

"I've performed all over the world but Hawaii is my favorite place," said Benz, 32, after a dozen-plus-hour flight from China where the ensemble had performed. "Someday I will move back to teach (Paul Taylor's) particular style and bring more modern dance here. This is my home."

Born in Berkeley, Calif., where her parents were attending college, Benz who is of Hawaiian, Chinese, Portuguese, English, Polish and American Indian descent, moved to Hawaii at age 5 and attended Kamehameha Schools. In 1977, she returned to the Bay Area when her school teacher mom decided to attend law school there.

Years of dance have sculpted Benz into a living statue. The 5-foot-3, 110-pound Benz is solid muscle.

"I remember hearing my (Punahou) dance teacher telling my mom I had talent and that made me want to keep dancing."

She enrolled in after-school ballet classes where she got to perform professionally.

In 1981 she moved to New York to attend the Joffrey School and then to the State University of New York where she met husband, Eric, who is a set designer for the Metropolitan Opera. In 1989, she joined the Paul Taylor Dance Company, whose namesake leader is considered one of the masters of modern American theatrical dance.

Taylor is known for blending contemporary elements - broad humor and simplified movements - with traditional aspects of dance: the use of classical music accompaniment and a concern with form.

"Paul likes to have varying types of people in the company. A ballet company often looks like everyone has been cloned. Paul is attracted to different people for different reasons, and different body types," Benz said.

Modern dance developed a tradition of independence, individualism and personal style in which innovation, unorthodox movement and new form is preferred to adherence to an established technical system.

The Hawaii Theatre audience will see one of Benz's favorite pieces, Taylor's antiwar "Company B," created in 1991. Taylor uses pop-music accompaniment from the Andrews Sisters as the setting for the songs that cheered Americans through World War II. These hits create a tapestry of buoyant young love, fearful goodbyes and sudden death. Hints of the battlefield are woven through the dance by means of silhouetted soldier figures moving along the back and blithe collapses tucked subtly into the flow of the dances.

Benz had major input on the company's island repertoire.

"We're doing all my favorite dances because I said so," she joked.

Last September, Benz suffered her most serious career injury, tearing a calf muscle a week before the company's New York season opening. Though the injury was less serious than first believed, Benz suffered considerably emotionally.

"I felt very vulnerable and started wondering what I would do if my career ended. Through the recovery I taught myself to dance in different ways and that was a very positive, growing experience. And I thought a lot about Hawaii and coming home."

What: Paul Taylor Dance Company
When: 7:30 p.m. tomorrow and Saturday
Where: Hawaii Theatre Center
Cost: $29.50-$39.50; $75 for dinner package at Indigo Restaurant. Tickets available at the box office or by phone at 528-0506
Program: Tomorrow, "Company B," "Musical Offering: A Requiem" with music by Bach, "Offenbach Overtures" with music by Jacques Offenbach. Saturday, "A Field of Grass" with songs by Harry Nilsson, "Aureole" to the music of Handel.