ORONO – Three men took the stage at Maine Center for the Arts last Wednesday night and signaled the start of an electrifying performance by the Ailey II dance company. The percussive beat of drums and intricate footwork in choreographer Robert Battle’s “Takedeme” set the stage for an explosive evening that didn’t let up until the applause died down for a sensitive offering of Alvin Ailey’s masterwork “Revelations.”

The 12 dancers in Ailey II are advanced students from the Ailey School in New York chosen to perform and tour for two years, honing their talents on a repertory that includes works by Alvin Ailey, his contemporaries and a host of young choreographers. When Ailey II appeared at MCA a few years ago, they were talented and technically assured but lacked maturity. This time an appreciative audience saw dancers perform with a luminous assurance, incredible technique and a sense of ensemble and company style. Their performance brings credit to the dancers, and to the keen eye and sound judgment of rehearsal director Derrick Minter and artistic director Sylvia Waters.

A last-minute program change proved a boon for the audience, providing a chance to experience two works by Robert Battle, “Takedeme,” choreographed to a vocal-instrumental score by Sheila Chandra, and “The Hunt,” set to the chants and drums of Les Tambours de Bronx. The men of Ailey II have a treasure in Battle, who has given them virtuoso challenges. “Takedeme” is a stylized version of classical Indian dance, elaborate footwork stamping out the voiced rhythms of the tabla. Add intricate hand movements, stiff-legged jumps, flinging arms and twisting torsos, and you have a vision of Siva come alive and a dynamite curtain raiser.

In “The Hunt,” six bare-chested men wearing ankle-length black skirts dance with an intensity and weightiness that recall the rituals of Micronesia and Africa and the early work of modern dance pioneer Martha Graham. Dancing in unison, they faced inward in a tight circle, then broke into couples, leapt like combating animals and melted into a slow tango. The dancers dissolved into an Escher-like tangle of bodies, then rose and reassembled. The audience was mesmerized and left no doubt that Battle is a choreographer to watch.

Completing the program were Joyce Trisler’s yearning 1958 solo, “Journey,” set to the music of Charles Ives; “Ailey’s Quintet,” for a chorus of women dressed in blond wigs, skin-tight red gowns and stilettos that had this reviewer longing for Martha and the Vandellas; and “Ailey’s Revelations,” which brought down the house. If he had done nothing more, Alvin Ailey would be remembered for this suite of dances set to traditional gospel music. Religion, filtered through art, brought audience and dancers together in jubilation just as the first cruise missiles were launching over Iraq.