DANCE REVIEW : ‘CASE CLOSED’ BY HUBBARD STREET CO.

Choreographer Lynne Taylor-Corbett is best known for her pop dances in the film “Footloose” and her pop ballet suite “Great Galloping Gottschalk” for American Ballet Theatre. But she has also tackled serious subjects: love and death in her Ballet Theatre “Estuary,” for instance.

Now, with “Case Closed,” she has attempted a feverish 40-minute dance-drama about the kidnaping of a baby girl and the subsequent degradation of everyone involved--especially the victims.

Introduced locally by Hubbard Street Dance Company on a mostly familiar, mostly Taylor-Corbett bill Sunday in Royce Hall, UCLA, this descent into the lower depths soon entered a realm of pure soap. For instance, the bereft father turned alcoholic and eventually met his kidnaped daughter (now grown), made a pass at her and shot her when she rejected him--just as his wife (her mother) arrived with proof of her identity.

Taylor-Corbett used a mixture of literal dance-mime and her usual punchy, gymnastic ballet/modern style to set this scenario, layering anguished actions by her soloists on a frieze of churning/pulsing group movement--the only interesting dancing in the piece.

Though choreographic characterization stayed sketchy, the Hubbard Street dancers, bless ‘em, performed with great tact and resource, as well as skill. Claire Bataille gave the role of the mother impressive stature and individuality. Rick Hilsabeck powerfully danced the father’s drunken solo. Kitty Skillman defined the daughter’s lyrical platitudes neatly and Ginger Farley tackled the impossible role of the kidnaper with her usual dynamism. But some problems can’t be solved by execution.

A driving jazz-rock score by Jan Hammer, lurid costumes by Donna Thomas Bond and a grim cityscape by Dean Taucher heightened the prevalent sense of overkill.

Repertory miniatures--”Line Drive,” “Tiempo,” “ ‘Go!,’ Said Max,” “Appearances” and “The ‘40s”--completed the program.