Clad in a sequin-embroidered unitard, Devon Maitozo scissor-kicks from a spinning handstand to a backflipping dismount. Coordinated to music, the move is already a spectacle—add the cantering horse beneath him, and the result is one of the more peculiar and obscure sports in America.

Equestrian vaulting, a combination of dance and gymnastics on horseback, is coming to the Stanford Red Barn this weekend. Maitozo’s Free Artists Creative Equestrians (FACE) Vaulting team is holding a fundraising exhibition Sunday evening to support its bid for the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games (WEG) in Kentucky.

“We’re giving a sneak peak of what we’re doing this year,” Maitozo said. “This will be our first time performing in 2010.”

The Romeo and Juliet-themed demonstration, which jumpstarts FACE’s competition season, will showcase five of the eight members of the FACE team.

Most popular in Western Europe, equestrian vaulting requires coordination between the vaulter, the horse and the “longeur,” who controls the horse’s path. Individuals, pairs and teams compete in separate categories, using mounts, dismounts, handstands and flips set to music. Teams, such as FACE, will also incorporate carries, lifts and tosses of team members as the horse canters about a circle.

The FACE team, drawing upon the theater and arts background of Maitozo, who does triple duty as head coach, choreographer and competitor, focuses on the lyricism and expression of their routines.

“I would say we’re more known for the way we interpret music and the way we use dance,” Maitozo said. “Our team tends to emphasize the artistry of the sport as opposed to the gymnastics of the sport.”

“I like to bring out the emotional experience for the audience,” he added.

After years of successfully competing in solo vaulting, Maitozo founded the FACE Vaulting Club in 2000 with the goal of sending elite teams to compete at the world championship level.

Maitozo-coached teams represented the United States at the 2002 WEG in Spain, placing fifth, and again in Germany in 2006, placing second. The World Equestrian Games—equivalent to the Olympics of horse sports—have been held every four years since 1990.

To represent the U.S. in October, the 2010 FACE team must earn high enough scores during the competition season beginning May 15. The current FACE team consists of six vaulters and two alternates from across the country, plus co-coach and team manager Anna de la Motte.

In preparation for the World Equestrian Games, FACE vaulter Mari Inouye said she practices every Tuesday and Thursday, while the team meets as a whole twice a month for three-day, intensive clinics. Finessing the intricate choreography and gravity-defying lifts requires “a lot of hours on the barrel,” Inouye said.

Most of the FACE team members have been vaulting from a young age, and many have distinguished themselves in individual events and on other vaulting teams. Equestrian vaulting, still a relatively small sport within the United States, draws people from a variety of backgrounds.

“People hear about [vaulting] from a friend, or they see something—it’s a lot of kids or parents that are intrigued by horses,” Maitozo said. “Having a gymnastics or dance background is helpful, but it is more likely [to be] people with a horse background.”

Inouye was originally a gymnast (she competed for the UC-Davis gymnastics team) before a friend introduced her to equestrian vaulting. She said the transition from traditional gymnastics to horseback acrobatics was not necessarily a smooth one.

“You aren’t only doing gymnastics on a static piece of equipment; you’re doing it on a living animal,” she said. “The animal is very unpredictable. You never know if it’s going to spook, so you have to be very in tune with your horse.”

The horse plays an essential role in routines, and it is more than a mere moving platform. Much like ice skating and gymnastics, scoring is based upon semi-subjective categories like technique, form and balance. But in equestrian vaulting, the horse, as well as the vaulter, is judged for the final score.

The hopes of this FACE team are carried on the back—literally—of Palatine, a 12-year-old chestnut Westphalian Warmblood imported from Berlin. Palatine, on the small side for a team horse, is currently the only horse on the roster.

For the Stanford performance, FACE will mainly showcase its freestyle work with some individual demonstrations of vaulting moves.

“We’re going to make it educational for the people who have no idea what vaulting is,” Inouye said. “[The audience] can expect a wonderful performance, which is really based on expression and being a performance piece.”

FACE will debut its new Romeo and Juliet routine, which the team hopes to take all the way to the World Equestrian Games, at the Stanford Red Barn at 5 p.m. on Sunday.