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When Lisa Hooks-Murray decided to form a modern dance company here in the late 1980s, she wasn’t sure what kind of reception she would get. After all, Baton Rouge is a classical ballet kind of town—conservative and much more comfortable with the tried-and-true than with the cutting edge of culture.

“This was a very different sort of concept for this community,” Hooks-Murray says.

But 20 years later, that dance troupe, Of Moving Colors Productions, is a thriving player in the local arts scene. It performs before sold-out audiences at the Manship Theatre and continues to introduce new artistic concepts to the community.

“I never wanted to have a completely dance-based company,” says Garland Goodwin Wilson, who succeeded Hooks-Murray as artistic director 10 years ago. “I felt like my challenge was to mix several mediums together in a contemporary dance that could be utilized to communicate and teach.”

OMC performances also include poetry, theater and visual arts. The diverse music ranges from Mozart to Gershwin to Led Zeppelin in a single show. The shows are fun, fanciful and endlessly inspiring, yet not so avant-garde as to leave the average audience member bewildered or bored.

“Hopefully our dance can be an outlet for people that can bring some things into their senses and experiences that words cannot convey,” says Wilson.

Originally called In The Company of Dancers, its early performances were in such inauspicious venues as high school auditoriums and second-floor meeting rooms in the Arts Council offices. But Hooks-Murray recognized that a contemporary dance troupe could fill a niche in Baton Rouge, and she was convinced the community would support it.

“Early on, I was fortunate to be able to gather a really creative, committed group of people, and that is what has carried it through today,” Hooks-Murry says.

Wilson changed the company’s name to Of Moving Colors Productions to convey the variety and open-ended nature of what her dancers try to do.

“I wanted to find a title that represented movement and investigations of different things, and to me colors can represent so many things both abstract and literal,” she says.

In celebration of its 20th season, OMC will have a special anniversary performance in late March. It’s also holding its first gala fundraiser this season in hopes of raising its profile.

“In any city your modern dance community is one of your smallest communities,” Wilson says. “However, I passionately believe that every city that has a strong modern dance community is a strong city and a successful city.”