April 15, 2006

DANCE SALAD PROVIDES A UNIQUE MIX
Variety helps performances stand on their own

By Molly Glentzer, Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

I felt a little like a Chosen One on Thursday, danced to death like the sacrificial maiden in "The Rite of Spring", as the Beijing Modern Dance Company LDTX pounced savagely - and pounced and pounced - to Igor Stravinsky's brash music in "All River Red", a Chinese take on the theme.

It was a long night of stunning dances, as has become the Dance Salad Marathon - er, Festival - tradition. You get a lot of dance for your money here, but at moments it's too much of a good thing.

For high drama, it's hard to beat the Chinese these days. In "All River Red", choreographers Li Han-zhong and Ma Bo made 10 strong dancers seem like an army. They employed red scarves to vivid effect as shrouds, flags, a wall, a huge jump rope and a dragon dance puppet.

In Liu Qi's "Upon Calligraphy", members of the Guangdong Modern Dance Company were powered by a beautiful mix of grace and testosterone. After a video illustrated the cultural gulf between computer-produced and hand-drawn script, it wasn't hard to visualize the moving bodies replicating strokes to the percussive music.

The night also offered some cool Eastern European edginess. Stephan Thoss' "Thundering Silence", to music by Antonio Vivaldi and Alessandro Marcello, was an abstract marvel, marvelously danced by members of Hanover's State Opera Ballet. A dozen Magritte-ish umbrellas suspended above the stage suggested a netherworld. But the real magic came through the six dancers' bodies in some of the quirkiest movement I've seen in a long time, full of delightful nuances. (I loved the subtle hand flutters against the stage, which sounded like birds beating their wings.) Sometimes the dancers seemed like animals or insects; at other times, they were like sky-borne puppeteers manipulating invisible marionettes.

Danish Dance Theater's performance of Tim Rushton's "Silent Steps" thrilled with its swift sharpness and dazzling, running lifts. A brief voiceover about masculinity vs. femininity set up some ponderous tension, and complex relationships unfolded against the playfulness of the Johann Sebastian Bach music.

While those dancers sat on black boxes, the Royal Danish Ballet's Silja Schandorff and Jean-Lucien Massot dealt with a table, a chair and a troubled relationship in Petr Zuska's "Les Bras de Mer". The piece was evocatively danced, but too much about the acrobatics with the furniture for my taste.

Ronald K. Brown's company Evidence was thoroughly engaging in "Come Ye, Amen", a structurally simple but masterful blend of celebratory religion, African and American cultural history, strength and playful sexiness.

Two classically based pas de deux showed off the virtuosic charms of Dutch National Ballet stars Yumiko Takeshima (with Cedric Ygnace in David Dawson's "Morning Ground") and Igone de Yongh (with Altin Kaftira in George Balanchine's "Who Cares? The Man I Love"). But so late in the program, after the excitement of larger pieces, the works felt tame.

An excerpt from Trey McIntyre's ballet parody "Chasing Squirrel", set to Kronos Quartet's "Nuevo", was enough. Let's hope we see something more significant from his new company in the future.

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