The West Coast premiere of “The Art of Falling” brought to the Ahmanson Theatre on Friday night some uproarious sketch-comedy supplemented and occasionally eclipsed by first-rate contemporary dance.
This collaboration by two major Chicago performing ensembles left the fearless Second City satirists in command and the versatile Hubbard Street dancers providing a witty movement complement -- initially as living furniture in a vignette about an office temp, later as creative visual amplification of the subjects and themes being explored in speech and song.
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The evening began with a pseudo-unctuous video parodying those self-glorifying “making of” featurettes tacked onto the DVD and Blu-ray versions of movies, with “Art of Falling” director and Hubbard artistic director (and former L.A. dance heartthrob) Glenn Edgerton turning up onstage as one of the few Hubbards allowed to speak. Call them the silent majority.
Among the Second City speakers -- and singers -- Christina Anthony made everyone else seem understated, dominating sketches about passenger relationships on an airline and, most memorably, begging the universe for answers to such cosmic questions as why there are no stars on “Dancing With the Stars.”
In contrast, the romance between Joey Bland and Travis Turner never seemed more than just a pretext for a prefab dare-to-love message and jokes about dancers. Some of those jokes -- and the overall use of dance as a mere adjunct to a verbal experience -- often made “The Art of Falling” seem a rather timid attempt to introduce dance to a Second City audience. Mission accomplished, though a little late for L.A., considering how often Matthew Bourne combined dance, social comedy and storytelling on this very stage.
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Second City’s Carisa Barreca performs with the Hubbard Street dance company in “The Art of Falling” at the Ahmanson Theatre.
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Second City’s Travis Turner, left, and Joey Bland perform with the Hubbard Street dance company in “The Art of Falling” at the Ahmanson Theatre.
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Alice Klock of the Hubbard Street dance company performs a solo in “The Art of Falling” at the Ahmanson Theatre.
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Second City’s Carisa Barreca, seated, performs with the Hubbard Street dance company in “The Art of Falling” at the Ahmanson Theatre.
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Katlin Michael Bourgeois of the Hubbard Street dance company leaps over performers during the opening of in “The Art of Falling” at the Ahmanson Theatre.
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The Hubbard Street dance company performs during “The Art of Falling” at the Ahmanson Theatre.
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Hubbard Street dance company members Kellie Epperheimer, left, Alicia Delgadillo, Kevin J. Shannon, Adrienne Lipson, Jacqueline Burnett and Ana Lopez perform a selection titled “Typewriter” in “The Art of Falling” at the Ahmanson Theatre.
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Second City’s Travis Turner, front, joins the Hubbard Street dance company in “The Art of Falling” at the Ahmanson Theatre.
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Jacqueline Burnett and Jesse Bechard of the Hubbard Street dance company perform during “The Art of Falling.”
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Second City’s Tim Mason, foreground left, and Christina Anthony perform with the Hubbard Street dance company in a selection titled “Confession: Or Crash.”
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Hubbard Street dance company performers during “The Art of Falling.”
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Desk chairs become props in “White Office Swan” in “The Art of Falling” at the Ahmanson Theatre.
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Second City and Hubbard Street dance company members perform a selection titled “Carnival.”
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Second City performers Travis Turner, from left, Tim Mason and Carisa Barreca perform a selection titled “Bicycle Ride.”
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The Hubbard Street dance company performs in “The Art of Falling” at the Ahmanson Theatre.
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Second City member Christina Anthony performs during “The Art of Falling.”
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Alicia Delgadillo plays a blow-up doll turned dance partner for Jason Hortin in a segment titled “Wicked at Heart,” a routine that brought the house down Friday night during the Hubbard Street dance company and the Second City comedy troupe’s “The Art of Falling” at the Ahmanson in L.A.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) Only once on Friday did Hubbard present the kind of choreography you might see on one of its standalone programs: a suite of five sleek duets excerpted from Alejandro Cerrudo’s “Second to Last” (music by Arvo Pärt). And only once did both companies risk a truly improvisational major collaboration: when Tawny Newsome (in character as a Croatian grandmother) interviewed two members of the audience, drawing images and activities that six dancers turned into brilliant movement haiku, further developed and refined before our eyes.
That sequence was sensational, even visionary. Everything else seemed a little safe in comparison: the plot lines about falling in love, falling into the arms of fast-moving office-workers, even falling from an airplane.
The five writers who created those plot lines and the five choreographers deployed to decorate or enhance them diverged on one crucial concept: topicality. Throughout the evening, the Second City contributions remained very much in the moment, illuminating the zeitgeist with material about same-sex relationships, racial perspectives and the cultural minutiae that fuel our conversations. But, at best, the dances stayed generally but never specifically millennial, and, at worst (in Cerrudo’s backdated “Typewriter” sextet, for instance) strangely out of touch. Typewriters? Where is Hubbard’s founder and pop virtuoso Lou Conte when we really need him?
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Ensemble member Carisa Barreca, center, watches Hubbard Street dancers perform during a rehearsal for “The Art of Falling,” a collaboration between Chicago’s Hubbard Street and The Second City, Oct. 29 at the Hubbard Street Studios in Chicago.
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Hubbard Street resident choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo, right, watches a rehearsal of “The Art of Falling” in Chicago.
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Hubbard Street resident choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo, right, critiques dancers during a rehearsal of “The Art of Falling” in Chicago.
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Ensemble member Carisa Barreca is pulled around on a rolling chair as part of a dance piece during a rehearsal for “The Art of Falling” in Chicago.
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Ensemble member Carisa Barreca is pulled around on a rolling chair as part of a dance piece during a rehearsal for “The Art of Falling” in Chicago.
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Hubbard Street dancer Kevin Shannon, center, performs during a rehearsal of “The Art of Falling” in Chicago.
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Hubbard Street dancer Adrienne Lipson performs during a rehearsal of “The Art of Falling” in Chicago.
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Hubbard Street dancers, from left, Kellie Epperheimer, Alicia Delgadillo, Kevin Shannon, Adrienne Lipson, Jacqueline Burnett, and Ana Lopez perform during a rehearsal for “The Art of Falling.”
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Hubbard Street Rehearsal Director and choreographer Lucas Crandall, center, talks with dancers during a rehearsal of “The Art of Falling.”
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Hubbard Street dancers and ensemble members perform during a rehearsal for “The Art of Falling” in Chicago.
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Hubbard Street dancer Alice Klock performs on a rolling chair as part of a dance piece during a rehearsal for “The Art of Falling” in Chicago.
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Billy Bungeroth, right, director of “The Art of Falling,” a collaboration between Chicago’s Hubbard Street and The Second City, stops in during rehearsals Oct. 29 at the Hubbard Street Studios in Chicago.
(Anthony Souffle / Chicago Tribune) Director Billy Bungeroth adroitly pulled everything together in a wildly entertaining barrage of sight and sound, words and moves. But the aftertaste to all the fun suggested that the Second City ought to trust dance more than it does. And that Hubbard Street ought to spend less time in the studio and more on the street.
