PUTTING ‘WHEELS’ ON L.A. CHAMBER BALLET

The newest work by Los Angeles Chamber Ballet takes its cue from ancient ethnic dance forms in which even a finger movement can carry great significance. However, the emphasis on subtle gesture in the new dance is imposed less by choreographic tradition than by nature: “Wheels 2” is performed in part by disabled performers in wheelchairs.

Saturday at El Camino College, six disabled performers and six able-bodied dancers will present the 33-minute ballet in an 8 p.m. mixed-bill program. The disabled artists use their upper bodies to perform rippling arm undulations, glide across the floor or spin around in their chairs.

“ ‘Wheels 2’ breaks down preconceived ideas about what a limitation is and puts dance in a more human perspective,” said company dancer and co-artistic director Victoria Koenig recently.

“Dance is physical, but it’s also expressive. And a beautiful statement can be made or something can be expressed powerfully within a very small range of movement--without having to jump in the air and do five tours .”

Trina Nahm-Mijo, a dancer, choreographer and psychology instructor at Hawaii Community College at Hilo, choreographed “Wheels 2.” Koenig, a founding member and dancer with Honolulu City Ballet from 1975 to 1978, saw “Wheels 1” in 1982, performed by Nahm-Mijo’s modern company, Dance Hawaii.

Nahm-Mijo, who studied dance with ex-Martha Graham company member David Wood, also trained for 14 years in Javanese, Korean and ancient Hawaiian idioms. To her, the nuances of movement common to those traditional forms and to “Wheels 2” have more to do more with an Eastern expression of an internal essence than with physical prowess.

“My work with these (Asian) dance forms led naturally to the wheelchairs,” she explained. “Dealing with the expression of the human soul within a limited movement range made me wonder how people with restricted movement could express the essence of dance. It’s the internal dance I’m really interested in.

“It’s challenging to unify the movement ranges of an able-bodied and a wheelchair performer. You have someone who can move a hand or an arm and someone who can do a penche arabesque . How are you going to make that read dancewise? The dancers have to be aligned internally to make it work.”

Koenig, who rides piggyback on the wheelchair of Italia Dito in a duet, believes that dancer and wheelchair performer create together “almost a surreal creature-like image. I sort of become the body and she’s the soul or the eyes. Italia has an extraordinary face. She can express through a look or through a movement of her head and move in a small way. I can move in a bigger way and we can be saying the same thing.”

Though Dito, 34, worked as a singer and actress since her high school days, she never appeared in a ballet. “My major concern was that (the movement in ‘Wheels 2’) would never read on stage,” she admitted. “But (Koenig and Nahm-Mijo) kept telling me ‘less is more.’ And also kept telling me that there’s something about my presence. Though I roll around in a power chair, there’s a presence, a being within. What was so wonderful was that I just felt like I transcended the chair.”

Koenig acknowledged that some members of the dance community have perceived the new work negatively ever since it was announced because they considered the use of wheelchair performers a tasteless gimmick. “There’s a cynical attitude about it on part of some,” she said, “as if we decided to do it because there’s money for this type of thing or it’s a hot, topical issue. That was not at all the intention.”

Dito agreed: “In San Diego (where ‘Wheels 2’ was first performed Sept. 27), there was a father with a little girl in a wheelchair who said to me after the performance, ‘That was magnificent,’ with such sincerity, I don’t see that anyone can look at this ballet and think it’s gimmicky.”