DANCE REVIEWS : JUBILATION’S SKILL AND ‘DEDICATION’

At 27, Kevin Jeff is something of a miracle worker. In just five years, he has developed his 12-member, Brooklyn-based Jubilation Dance Company into a notably exciting, attractive, accomplished and cohesive ensemble.

More remarkably, his creative imagination and integrity have renewed some of the most shopworn and abused themes in black dance.

At Marsee Auditorium, El Camino College, on Saturday, Jubilation danced Jeff’s uneven but highly purposeful “Dedication,” an African roots piece that--in the superb duet for a supple, anguished Aaron W. Dugger and a massive, serene Lincoln Fortune--showed exactly why a sense of cultural heritage is crucial to black identity and hope.

Also touching profound issues: “Flack,” Jeff’s compassionate view of contemporary street life. Here the forceful dance-mime episodes expressed sorrow for despairing, alcoholic young men and their abandoned women--plus a suggestion that our salvation may lie in reunion with society’s outcasts.

In movement terms, Jeff’s choreography sought a fusion of genres but was strongest in its supple gestural imagery and unorthodox floor motion, weakest in the attempts to integrate ballet steps.

The sinewy “Aisatnaf” solo for Dugger came the closest to genuine synthesis, but even conventional jazz/modern display pieces (“Nia Keii,” for instance) revealed extraordinary skill and taste. Jubilation is going to be a very popular company; it is already a very important one.