JOFFREY BALLET : ‘HEART OF MATTER’ BY KUDELKA

The current season by the Joffrey Ballet at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion hasn’t exactly been notable for novelty. We have seen an old “Romeo and Juliet” with new sets that duplicate the old ones. We have seen some recycled romantic fluff by Gerald Arpino and another minimalist ritual by Laura Dean.

Under the circumstances, it would be easy to call James Kudelka the man of the hour--by default. But default has nothing to do with it. The man is good. His work is compelling, provocative, original.

Tuesday night, Joffrey had offered a Kudelka appetizer: the local premiere of “Passage,” an ancient work by the young (now 30) Canadian choreographer. It lasts a mere 12 minutes, enlists only six dancers and dates back--way back--to 1982.

Wednesday night came the main course: the local premiere of “The Heart of the Matter.”

The first performance took place, under Joffrey auspices, in Iowa City two months ago. A semi- magnum opus, this ballet lasts 33 minutes, employs an ensemble of 20, and appropriates a heroic score--the Second Prokofiev Piano Concerto--that occasionally serves as a musical straitjacket but often actually propels the action forward.

Did I say action ? Did I suggest forward propulsion? In this case, the terms are relative.

Kudelka has given us a cool, mod, disturbing little essay on alienation. There are no narrative histrionics here, no easy choreographic effects. The heart of this matter would seem to be a bleak exploration of gender conflicts, of psychosexual friction and pervasive Angst .

I know this sounds portentous, grim, self-conscious, maybe even sophomoric. But Kudelka creates poignant expressive images. He sustains tension by sometimes halting with the expected progression of motion, by suspending time and by leaving a lot unsaid. He consigns much of the overt drama to the orchestra pit, and savors both understatement and ambiguity.

The ambiguity begins in the program credits. In lieu of the customary annotation, Kudelka offers a pithy quotation from Dorothy Parker:

By the time you swear you’re his,

Shivering and sighing,

And he vows his passion is

Infinite, undying--

Lady, make a note of this:

One of you is lying.

This is very clever, cute, wry. It leads one to expect a satirical ballet, a flight of bittersweet whimsy. Kudelka gives us nothing of the kind.

He gives us a chorus of loose-limbed, self-absorbed men who strut and swagger in repetitive, intertwining patterns. He gives us a chorus of proud, erect, tough women who stalk the boards like slinky latter-day Wilis.

There is much stretching and swaying of the upper torso, much unison gesticulation, much dancing with the head and with the fingers. Kudelka uses a broad, eclectic yet unorthodox movement vocabulary to create striking images of disorientation and frustration.

Everyone sports grayish casual-chic street clothes from the stores of Santo Loquasto. As the work progresses, the dancers become increasingly pallid because the back cloth, lit by Thomas Skelton, takes on an increasingly torrid glow.

One woman and one man emerge from the crowd. Tentatively, they dance around each other. They respond to a subtle magnetism that demands mutual testing. They execute unisex maneuvers suggesting spiritual as well as physical equality. But there is little joy here, much painful and frightening ritual.

The two partake of an extended love duet in which the love is never allowed to flourish, in which their bodies are never allowed to touch--much less fuse.

Eventually, there is contact. The contact, however, is perfunctory, competitive, cautious, numbing. Finally, the man is drawn back to the men, the woman returns to the women. If there are regrets, they seem minimal.

One may regard Kudelka’s vision of sexual rivalry and incompatability as simplistic. There is nothing simplistic, however, about his sense of dramatic and musical structure. There is nothing simplistic in his inventive, pervasively independent style.

The performance Wednesday night seemed exemplary. In the central assignments, Dawn Caccamo--her soft lyricism masking steely strength--was perfectly matched by the vulnerable yet aggressive Glenn Edgerton. Partnered obviously is the wrong word here.

In the pit, pianist Stanley Babin, conductor Allan Lewis and a solid if understaffed orchestra offered a reasonable facsimile of the daunting Prokofiev concerto.

The evening opened with a sweet performance of Arpino’s quasi-Viennese confection, “Kettentanz” and closed with a brilliant performance of John Cranko’s “Jeu de Cartes” with David Palmer as the dazzling Joker.