DANCE REVIEWS : LEWIS ENSEMBLE

The Terri Lewis Dance Ensemble is a 3-year-old local ballet troupe that made a mixed impression Saturday in the Gallery Theatre of Barnsdall Art Park.

Granted, the stage was cramped and the portable dance floor worn and slippery. Still, the six-member troupe showed more than a fair amount of technical insecurity--shaky balances, blurred terminations and effortful partnering from the two men in the company.

Also, although Lewis commanded a range of choreographic styles, her works looked sadly derivative.

In “Slinging Hash,” she gave traditional Dixieland music the whimsical dance-hall-style treatment that Kenneth MacMillan gave Scott Joplin in “Elite Syncopations.” Yet her dancers lacked sufficient security for such throwaway insouciance.

Similarly, her demands for sparkling technique and lyric expressivity in “Pas de soie” were incompletely met. Fortunately, the company found more congenial the gymnastic and geometric expressions of modern Angst in Carolyn Dorfman’s “The Jumper.”

Lewis’ most ambitious effort was “From Her Room/An Emily Dickinson Fantasy,” which explored the poet’s inner and outer life.

As in Graham’s “Letter to the World,” the role of Emily was double-cast. One Emily (Patricia Morgan) did most of the dancing; the other Emily (Teresa Morales) did the writing. And as in Graham, Dickinson’s poems were part of the (taped) accompaniment.

Lewis used the double casting to contrast the division between the free spirit within and the Puritan-observer-of-life without. Still, she only sketched in the episodes. The crucial encounter with the Lover (a pallid Andrew Ogilvie), for instance, lacked dramatic power and even reasonable motivation.

Nonetheless, Morgan danced with lyric poise and Lewis created some striking imagery.