ALBANY — Few choreographers explore character as honestly as Maude Baum.

That was made clear on Saturday night when her Maude Baum and Company Dance Theatre opened its 35th anniversary spring salon season at its own eba Theatre.

The evening was a retrospective. And among her revivals was a 1978 piece, “24 Hour Watch,” that captured the mettle of city firefighters.

Essentially, Baum distilled a day-in-the-life of these heroes.

The piece embraced the scope of their experiences — from the chain-smoking and practical-joking in the tedious quiet hours to the frantic, but coordinated sprint to the rescue once the alarm blared. Baum, obviously a people watcher, crafted the minutes with drama.

The cast for the revival was ideal. She grabbed three of her grittier dancers — Mary Beth Hampshire, Lynn Hasselbarth and Deb Rutledge — who were persuasive as the fidgety firefighters.

Their banter (Baum injected a lot of dialogue) as well as their masculine mannerisms could be construed as stereotypical or one-dimensional.

But the trio lent a depth and sympathy to their honest characterizations. Thus, the audience, convinced of their roles, rooted heartily for them as they battled the inevitable fire.

With the lights dimmed, Baum created some tense moments. To Pink Floyd’s “Us and Them,” Hasselbarth and Rutledge climbed, slid and hung upside down on a 10-foot ladder.

Their duet on the aluminum frame captured a fearlessness and Herculean effort. Then the stage went black and all that was heard was wheezing and coughing. “24 Hour Watch” is dramatic dance theater at its best.

Less successful was the revival of Baum’s “Splendor in Stone,” a work from 1995. The piece was commissioned by the New York State Museum to highlight an exhibition of photographs that magnified the interiors of stone.

For the work, seven dancers performed in front of projections of slide images of rock interiors. The dancers swirled and collided, becoming the fabric of the stones. The hypnotic sensation was smashed, however, when the lights came up and the dancers cited random phrases or songs with the word rock, ie “Rock of Ages” or “Rock Around the Clock.” The organic grandeur that was established was then destroyed.

But then again, Baum’s abstract works were never her forte. People were. She rose again with “Ballerina Barbies.” The night’s opener was a hoot. Six ballerinas, all with distinct personalities, were acting very badly. Rutledge, as the pushy sergeant, and Hampshire, as the airhead, stood out again.

The program also featured Isabelle Holmes’ “Evolving.” The new work, exploring the sibling relationship, held promise but was underdeveloped. Holmes could have and should do more with “Evolving.”

Maude Baum and Company Dance Theatre will repeat this performance at 6 p.m. today and 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, May 30 and 31, at the eba Theatre, 351 Hudson Ave., Albany.