In Houston, winter means one thing for movement lovers of all ages, Dance Month at the Jewish Community Center. Every year, I look forward to the lineup dance director Maxine Silberstein and assistant executive director Marilyn Hassid have dreamed up.

Headlining the now 31-year old festival is Koresh Dance Company, the internationally known troupe directed by Israeli-born Ronen Koresh, on Feb. 4 and 5.

The Dance Month team has also come up with smart choices on local troupes on the move with Triple Focus, which gets going Saturday and Sunday, highlighting Hope Stone, NobleMotion and the hip hop twins of Inertia and HIStory. The young dancers of Houston Ballet II, who look more like the "A" team every year, will perform on Feb. 12. The month also celebrated Israeli folk dance with the return of Shmulik Gov-Arl in the ever-popular Tirkedu.

A full schedule of master classes makes the festival an educational feast for dance students as well.

NobleMotion premieres it's second collaboration with lighting designer Jeremy Choate with Light Blanket x44, which includes a blanket of lights covering the entire stage floor, then manipulated into various designs.

"We seem to be finding a world that is both mysterious and magical," Noble says. "The company will also present a small place, a gut wrenching solo about a pivotal point in time for a woman on the edge, performed by Erin Reck, along with Dionne Sparkman Noble's Following Aunt Joan.

"In this piece, five women, dressed in the 'classic little black dress,' explore themes of sensuality, empathy and rivalry. The dynamic and seductive chair dance reveals moments of vulnerability and questions what it means to be a woman of our times."

HIStory and its farm team, Inertia from Westside High School, offer a new personal piece that features a story line about the young dancers aiming to make the professional company. Known for their splashy Dance Houston performances, both troupes have recently returned from a tour of China.

"We have a very theatrical style," says Sharon Roberts, who directs both companies. "We really use the stage space, which is something you don't see too much in hip hop."

Hope Stone's Jane Weiner is planning a mash-up of two older pieces,Swimming to Parallel, along with a new work for all women, called in situ.

"It's the result of my grappling with the notion of peace and war," Weiner says. "It's dance-y but serious."

Koresh has been on JCC's radar for a while now. Hassid found herself stunned by the company at APAP, the performing arts shopping mall for presenters.

"They are passionate, breathtaking, physical and sensual," Silberstein says. "Not only is Koresh a strong, intriguing company, but Ronen Koresh began his training in Tel Aviv with Israeli folk dancing."

"Of course, I studied folk dancing," quips Koresh, from his Philadelphia base. "Everyone dances in Israel."

Don't pigeonhole Koresh as a choreographer who sticks to one particular style though.

"Defining my work is the most common and difficult question people ask about my work," he says. "I don't create a specific vocabulary. Each work I do has its own language. I want to make something no one has seen before."

Koresh's dancers don't fit the usual mode either. Described as strong, bold and athletic, each dancer adds their own flavor to his work.

Koresh will present A Sense of Human, hailed as his "masterwork' by the Philadelphia Inquirer.

"People have always told me that my work had such a sense of humanity about it, so I began to think about what that really means to me," Koresh says.

Opening the evening is Ohad Naharin's powerful duet Passo Mezzo. It took some serious negotiations to get this piece. Naharin, considered one the greatest living choreographers of our time, doesn't let just any company perform his work. It helped that Koresh danced with Batsheva II, still the deal wasn't a given.

"My brother ran into Ohad in the street and handed him a DVD," he says. "He knew of us. Ohad liked the company very much and even came to Philadelphia to set the work."

Koresh also spent three years in the Israeli Army, an experience that continues to inform his work.

"My time in the army absolutely influenced me, especially the idea that tomorrow is not promised to you," he says. "It eliminated the idea of limitations. It's all up to you to do something. I gathered many tools to live my life with. It taught me to get to the meat of things. It's very powerful and audiences like that."

Indeed, Koresh makes dances that move you and make you want to move. With a vocabulary culled from emotion, motion and just about every form of dance, his work embodies an unmistakeable visceral urgency.

"My work is about what it makes you feel not what you see," he says.

Get a taste of Ronen Koresh's A Sense of Human

The students of Westside High School's Inertia Dance Company will blow you away