New York has long had festivals of African and flamenco dance; the dance forms of India are every bit as memorable. For that reason Erasing Borders: Festival of Indian Dance strikes me as the best new arrival on this city’s dance scene in the last two years. Individual performances here have often shown various aspects of this area, but the Borders festival affords a survey of its range, while honoring both traditional forms and modern developments.

The festival offered a program on Wednesday at Chase Plaza, and the result was just as varied and rich as the performances I saw in 2008, the festival’s first year. (Wednesday’s event was part of the Downtown Dance Festival.)

Of all the open-air programs I have seen in this city, nothing stops the casual pedestrian better than performers in full Indian dance attire, moving apparently every muscle from head to toe (not least those of the eye, the fingers and the toes).

Most extraordinary of all on Wednesday was the “Chaturang” solo, choreographed in the Kathak style of North India by Rohini Bhate (who died last fall) and danced by Prerana Deshpande. When Ms. Deshpande stood at the side of the open-air stage waiting, she — despite a dress of great beauty, with silk colored in aquamarine with mustard trimmings — looked unremarkable: dour, without radiance. Surprise! The length, the rhythmic complexity and the intricate physical coordination of her solo (performed to taped music, composed by Ghulam Ghaus Khan) proved astonishing.

As were its sheer grace and exaltation. No sooner did she start with slow arcs of the arms and torso than you felt the subordination of the dancer to larger principles. In dance there are perhaps three kinds of line. It can be something finite, stretching as far as the performer’s limbs. As part of a through-the-body gesture, it can beam forward into space, often far. And most rarely and movingly, it can seem something through which infinity passes. Indian dance often suggests all three, but it is still an unusual event to feel the third kind in all its transcendence; Ms. Deshpande did so early on.

The solo never paused but, over several minutes, passed through gradual accelerations and more marked changes of dynamics. Was Ms. Deshpande the mistress of her dance or its servant? Both. At times you felt her surrendering to its impulse as she allowed her torso to sway, gorgeously, from side to side; at times you felt the brilliance of her control as she changed or embellished an already elaborate rhythm with her feet. Well into the solo, while keeping up the footwork, she began a series of alternating turns to right and left.

The whole dance was a study in both contrast (looking down or up, moving in and out, bending left or right) and coordination (every body part seemed to come into play in different combinations). And you felt its spontaneity: more than any performer I have seen, Ms. Deshpande seemed to show the change of scale involved when a glance upward becomes, at Chase Plaza, a look up to a sky hemmed in by four skyscrapers.

The three best-known traditional Indian dance forms are Bharatanatyam, Kathak and Odissi, but it’s not easy to see all of them in quick succession. Wednesday’s performance included vivid examples of the three. The Western eye first notices what they have in common: bare feet; anklets composed of tiny bells; a percussive use of the ball of the foot, the heel and the sole. And — often — the coordination of upper- and lower-body parts, a lively interplay of both arm gesture and foot rhythm, a complex sense of through-the-body line and unequaled articulation of the eyes. Then the Western viewer begins to appreciate their differences.

Still, it was easy to see that the Bharatanatyam and Odissi dances on Wednesday were quite unlike the Kathak solo in many respects. Odissi (from East India) was represented by a male-female duet, “Arabhi Pallavi,” danced by Rahul Acharya (bare-chested, very slender-waisted, in blue pantaloons) and Nandini Sikand (in purple and pink) of Sakshi Productions. I adored the work’s firmly statuesque positions, its riveting use (occasionally) of the pelvis and upper torso tilted drastically sideways away from each other, its flow of gestures, its extraordinary side-to-side language of the eyes (heightened by full eyeliner for both sexes). And I loved the way — in rhythm, spatial design and mutual address — the duet kept changing. (Though the two dancers often do the same movements, or similar ones in question-and-answer dialogue, the man sometimes kneels while addressing her: it’s a compliment she may not return.)

The Bharatanatyam form (of South India) — which seems to share quite a few movements with Odissi in particular — was exemplified by two women (Sahasra Sambamoorthi and Srinidhi Raghavan). The work’s floor patterns had the two dancers traveling now parallel, now in mirror patterns, sometimes breaking for their own question-and-answer passages; some gestures resembled speech, others were held like statuary. Mainly this “Thillana” dance, presented by the group Navatman, showed the rhythmic vivacity of Bharatanatyam. I love the way the dancers will advance head, arm and heel in the same direction, then pull them back, all as part of a larger, ebullient meter.

In all three of these dances I felt my breathing accelerate; so much is going on in each. But this Borders performance featured seven companies. The programming showed a good sense of contrast; the spoken introductions before each item were intelligently done, providing plenty of context.

Felicia Norton’s performance of “Noor,” choreographed for Labyrinth Dance Theater by Ms. Norton and Sasha Spielvogel, was a foolish effort to tell a story of heroic World War II spying with soulful earnestness, a few props and fewer dance ideas. From the InDance troupe, Paul Charbonneau’s performance of Hari Krishnan’s “Mea Culpa” was a cheerful essay in coarse outrageousness, supposedly — and very campily — imitating the early modern dancer Ted Shawn’s all-too-Western concept of Lord Shiva. Emily Watts’s performance of the same choreographer’s “Firecracker” was longer, more accomplished and scrupulous in its attention to features of Indian dance style, and duller.

The most enchantingly chic item came from the four young women of Infin8. In “In the Blind,” their mixture of hip-hop, pop, rock and Bharatanatyam, while suggesting aspects of pursuing a city life amid the current financial meltdown, was delivered with terrific polish and attack. And their gray, black and white city-style uniforms are among the most charmingly designed nontraditional dance costumes I have seen in months.

No less winning — in maroon and black Indian attire — was the Bollywood team the Sa Dance Company (eight women, five men), lip-synching as they danced with irresistible good humor and high energy. The two young women who sustained a central duet — breathtakingly pretty, like all of the Infin8 women — combined stamina, skill and wonderful glee.