DANCE REVIEW : ‘RUSSIA’ PROGRAM STOPS SHORT OF THE DAY’S NEWS

When life overtakes art, watch out. Liz Lerman is a charismatic performer and a deft choreographer, so her “Russia: Footnotes to History,” a cavalcade of theater games and formal dances overlaid with speech, might seem pertinent and diverting in a more relaxed time.

But, in the aftermath of the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, Lerman’s leisurely, whimsical exploration of Slavic culture looked lightweight and ingenuous on Thursday at the Japan America Theatre.

Backdated, too: The piece summarized events up to 1986, but not quite far enough to grapple with the cataclysm on everyone’s mind.

Inspired by what Lerman called her “fascination with what other people think is evil,” the two-act performance art piece enlisted 11 members of Lerman’s Washington, D.C.-based Dance Exchange in vignettes depicting everything from folk tales to historical milestones.

Here was the towering figure of Mother Russia, gesticulating in Lerman’s sharp-edged gestural style from high above the stage and looking rather like Mother Ginger from “The Nutcracker.” Here, too, was Peter the Great, erecting a toy city and pulling a toy boat. And here was a formalist modern-dance abstraction of Stalinist terror.

Lerman’s wry comments on the episodes, her sense of telling movement superimpositions and, above all, her ability to maintain a personal focus on her subject kept “Russia” passably intriguing. But she never pretended to go very deeply into the subject, and maybe we need more this week than just a scherzo a la Russe. Now, about that cloud headed this way . . . .