Pilobolus dance troupe is all about literal and metaphoric touch.

Pilobolus dance troupe has successfully brought avant-garde dance movement and unconventional art direction into the mainstream. It was formed by Moses Pendleton, Jonathan Wolken and Steve Johnson when they were students at Dartmouth College in 1971, inspired by Alison Becker Chase, and named after the pilobolus mushroom.

And they have pursued and honed the experimental fringes of dance and movement ever since, on progressively bigger stages, including Broadway, the Oscars and the Olympic games. They’re coming to Carmel this weekend to perform a touring program of five pieces paired with transmedia digital creations.

They performed one of them, “Symbiosis,” at the 2005 TED Conference in Monterey. Set to discordant and gorgeous music by George Crumb, Arvo Part and Thomas Oboe Lee, a male and female dancer – minimally clothed and drenched in dark blue light – writhe and climb over and around each other like a creature figuring out its many limbs. Or like two beings figuring out how they might fit together. It’s slow, sensual, strange, physical, acrobatic and inventive.

It’s not so much performance art or acroyoga as it is some approximation of music + movement + art + interpretive dance. It doesn’t so much tell a story as it suggests them. Mark Fucik is Pilobolus’s creative director.

“The inspiration for each piece varies, but what is constant in our work is our desire to explore human connection,” Fucik writes by email. He says they draw on the experience of everyone in the room to get diverse ideas and viewpoints.

“This process helps to let our audiences access the work on many different levels. It makes us accessible to the most learned of dance goers and to the ones who got dragged to our show kicking and screaming.”

PILOBOLUS performs 8pm Friday, Nov. 2, at Sunset Center, Ninth and San Carlos, Carmel. $59; $69; $79. 620-2048, sunsetcenter.org