DANCE REVIEW : ‘DESERT DESSERT’ DANCED AT HOUSE

In tracing the evolution and decline of the Southern California desert/coastal environment, the satiric modern-dance suite “Desert Dessert” unleashed an arsenal of diverting visual effects and striking theatrical images that stubbornly refused to add up.

Lavishly produced at the House on Friday by the aptly named Collage Dance Theatre, this 90-minute modern-dance divertissement reportedly represented a privately funded UCLA master’s thesis project for choreographers Heidi Duckler (blond, long-limbed, inventive as a comic mime) and Bonnie Lavin (dark-haired, slender, a fine dancer).

Beginning with Ken Butler’s dazzling slide-screen overture, “Desert Dessert” introduced such wonders as dancing garbage cans and inverted wading pools, a gymnastic depiction of body surfing, a shopping-cart ballet, flashlight and traffic-sign trickery--plus depictions of every kind of living creature from prehistoric reptiles to post-literate housewives.

Plenty of promising ideas for choreography here: thematic premises, gestural motifs, vocabularies, floor plans--all clever and all undeveloped. Something simple, focused and distinctive should have been attempted before this overambitious extravaganza.