Sparse meditations on big medications

America is awash in drugs. Obviously, those include the opioids and uppers and botanicals that have the attention of the DEA, but there are also the more familiar, domesticated categories of pharmaceuticals — the ones that can put you to sleep, ease your neuroses and stiffen whatever part of your anatomy seems to need stiffening.

That latter category serves as the fodder for “Prescription Drug Nation,” a sparse and meditative evening of music and dance by composer Aaron Gervais and choreographer and dancer Michelle Fletcher that opened a four performance run at ODC Theater on Thursday, April 13.

Spending 90 minutes in the company of these splendid performers, the Here Now Dance Collective and the guitarists of the Mobius Trio, is like taking a crash course in the world of Big Pharma.

Not that the piece actually has much to do with either the corporate or the sociological aspects of this slice of the American experience. Although it bears a title that makes it sound like a crusading, big-picture slab of reportorial nonfiction, “Prescription Drug Nation” turns out to be something more intimate — a suite of evocative portraits of six of the most common meds on the market.

These 10- or 12-minute episodes run alphabetically from Adderall through Viagra, with stops along the way for your favorite mood enhancers and soporifics. Each one is conjured up by Gervais’ impressionistic writing for a shifting combination of electric and acoustic guitars, and Fletcher’s choreography — by turns tautly regimented and freely sinuous — reflects the outlines of the immersion.

At its best, “Prescription Drug Nation” draws those connections in ways that are both specific and surprising. For “Adderall,” Gervais sets the excellent Mobius members — Mason Fish, Matt Linder and Robert Nance — spinning

8 p.m. Saturday, April 15; 2 p.m. Sunday, April 16. $15-$40. ODC Theater, 3153 17th St., San Francisco. (415) 863-9834. www.odc.dance