MUSIC AND DANCE REVIEWS : SHIMAZAKI IN TRIBUTE TO MICHIO ITO

Michio Ito would have appreciated the symbolism--and the irony. On Saturday, his innovative modern dance solos were again performed in the city where he had lived from 1929 until he was deported with other Japanese in 1942.

Moreover, they were performed in the culture palace of Little Tokyo, the Japan America Theatre, which didn’t exist when Ito worked here, but now, 24 years after his death, commemorates the fusion of cultures basic to his choreography.

Traditional Japanese design is highly popular nowadays--and Westernized Japanese design even more so. Thus Ito’s 11 solos, which took the emphasis on rhythmic gesture (rather than footwork) from old Japanese dance forms and combined it with Jacques Dalcroze’s new system of Eurythmics (musical visualization through principles of body motion), looked not just fresh on Saturday but fashionable. Post-modern, even, in their emphasis on essentials.

Consider the classic 1916 “Pizzicati” on Saturday. Satoru Shimazaki wore his own contemporary hair style but a facsimile of Ito’s black sparkling pantalooned jump suit. Standing in second position, his arms at shoulder height, Shimazaki made his hands dance: They flickered and flashed brilliantly, swung in high-velocity arcs across his chest and curved sensuously overhead, always tracing the contours of an unprepossessing tune from Delibes’ “Sylvia.”

Each motion revealed the mental concentration and utter physical commitment of a martial arts assault, yet the delicacy of execution matched the music perfectly.

In the Scriabin “Prelude VI” (1927) and the Schumann “Warrior” solo (1928, part of “Symphonic Etudes”), Ito and Shimazaki embodied the fury of combat in fierce stamps and lunges, arms flung wide (the former work) and fencing thrusts, circling parries and an almost contemptuously triumphant final pose (the latter).

Less successful, for Shimazaki, were more subdued dramatic vehicles--the spare, sculptural “Ave Maria” (1912) and the stained-glass formalism of “Ecclesiastique I” (1922), for example--which looked more like mere demonstrations of Ito’s celebrated 20-position port de bras instead of emotionally responsive performances.

Although the rigid choreographic symmetries dated Ito’s achievements somewhat, his work so imaginatively compressed major actions, feelings, insights into perfectly crafted dance haiku that it held more than historical interest.

It also outclassed Shimazaki’s own, less distinctive choreographies “The Seasons” and “Tango” (both 1983). Where Ito’s “Tango” (1927) always defined a powerful linear statement through meticulous adjustments in alignment and plastique, Shimazaki’s version lost focus through disconnected effects. He danced both ably.

Dmitry Rachmanov supplied decent piano accompaniments for everything except “Ave Maria” (danced to canned Schubert) and also played a Rachmaninoff prelude and a Scriabin etude without terpsichorean enhancement.