It’s that time of year when the trees and bushes bloom and local dancers leap with the joy of it.

The brush, pop, sweep, slide, jump, turn and delight of the dancers and choreographers of Whidbey Island Dance Theatre’s annual “Dance and Choreography Showcase” will be onstage at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 24 and at 2 p.m. Sunday, April 25 in the auditorium at South Whidbey High School.

This year, the company features the diverse talents of both in-house choreographers and some from Seattle who will present works new to island audiences.

David Lorence Schleiffers is the artistic director of Quark Contemporary Dance Theatre of Seattle and a young talent who has won several awards and an impressive dose of recognition for what has been described as unpretentious and thought-provoking choreography.

The Whidbey dancers will perform Schleiffers’ piece titled “Once and Never Again.”

He said he was pleasantly surprised by the young dancers.

“The Whidbey Island girls are fantastic to work with,” Schleiffers said.

“I had no idea what to expect because I had never worked with a high-school-aged dance company before. My style is unlike anything they have encountered before, and through the past couple months I have been coaching them to move in a new and different way.”

Although the dancers have told him his is one of the hardest dances they’ve had to learn, Schleiffers is pleased with the way the dance looks and is looking forward to getting it in front of the audience here.

Professional dancer with Spectrum Dance Company of Seattle and choreographer Danielle Wilkins is familiar with the girls of Whidbey Island.

It says a lot about this young company’s ability that Wilkins returns to the showcase for the fourth year with a new work for all of the full company and apprentice dancers. Her piece is titled “Terminal Sentence.”

Although most of the showcase features modern dances, Island Dance teacher Leigh-Anne Cohen-Hafford brings a bit of the classics to the production.

Cohen-Hafford, a former ballerina with Ballet British Columbia, and a faculty member at Cornish College of the Arts, has re-staged an excerpt from Marius Pepita’s famous ballet, “Sleeping Beauty” for three of the company’s ballerinas.

Additional contemporary genre works on the program are by Whidbey choreographers Andrea Binder, Jennifer Bondelid and Jamee Brown Pitts and student choreographers Jachen Mackner and Chelsea Matthews-Jensen.

The showcase will also feature a special treat with a performance by The Stone Dance Collective, who will perform Seattle choreographer Eva Stone’s “Stick Figures,” a poignant and unaffected examination of the breadth and space between men and women. Stone is the artistic director of the annual Chop Shop: Bodies of Work Dance Festival at Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue. Her newest work, “press/release,” will be performed by the Whidbey Island Dance Theatre company dancers.

Susan Campbell Sandri, resident choreographer and co-artistic director of the company, said she looks forward to presenting the showcase to island audiences every year.

“WIDT’s Dance and Choreography Showcase is an important part of our mission, to be a significant cultural resource for Whidbey Island,” Sandri said.

“The showcase exists to provide Whidbey audiences with a taste of the wide variety of concert dance forms, and a sampling of the work of local and outside choreographers. Simultaneously, our highly talented, pre-professional dancers gain valuable experience by working for different artists with differing philosophies and creative processes,” she added.

The company is not only good enough to attract guest choreographers, it is also a member of the prestigious Regional Dance America contingent.

Sandri and co-director and Island Dance founder Charlene Brown have guided the company to the Pacific Festival of Regional Dance America several times in recent years and saw it perform in Pittsburgh, Pa., Provo and Salt Lake City, Utah, Tucson, Ariz., Los Angeles, Calif. and in several cities in Washington.

This year, the company will travel to Richland, Wash. to present choreographer Stone’s “press/release,” which was recently selected by a national adjudicator — Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Nicholas Ade — to be performed at the 2010 festival in May. Whidbey Island Dance Theatre is one of 22 companies that will perform at the four-day festival.

In short, the company has continued to grow in leaps and bounds, so to speak, and the showcase is one way for the community to keep track of its progress.

The “Dance and Choreography Showcase,” along with the “Nutcracker,” is the company’s main opportunity to perform for Whidbey audiences and show the community its growth in technique and style that is the result of many hours, days, weeks and months of classes and rehearsals.

The company’s organizers and choreographers are proud to present the accomplishments of these hard-working young dancers who include senior company dancers Jachen Mackner, Emily Rookstool, Grace Swanson, Raelani McLean Kesler, Sayaka Yokota, Avery Grant, Amy Arand, Elliauna Madsen, Julianna Nolen and Katie Alice Rookstool; apprentice dancer Madyson Hunter; and junior company dancers Emily Doucette, Weslee Doucette, Kiana Henny, Isabella Matossi, Cassie Neil, Faith O’Brochta and Abigail Rookstool.

Tickets cost $18 for adults, and $10 for youths younger than 18; to get tickets, click here or call the WIDT box office at 341-2221. Tickets will also be available at the door for both performances.