MUSIC AND DANCE REVIEWS : LIMON LEGACY EXTENDS THE TRADITION

Intense yet meticulously composed, the work of modern dance pioneers Jose Limon and Doris Humphrey was honored when new but is increasingly neglected today--an example of our flagrant waste of natural resources, since it represented some of the strongest, most accessible choreography ever seen in America.

The Limon Dance Company not only serves as keepers of the flame but has extended the tradition. The 12-member ensemble’s program, Saturday at the Fine Arts Village Theatre, UC Irvine, included two vintage Limon compositions plus a provocative new piece by a choreographer from the recent, flourishing German Tanztheater idiom. An intriguing mix of influences.

Limon’s “There Is a Time” (1956) contrasted the extremes of human experience. His “A Choreographic Offering” (1964) reassembled dance mementos of Humphrey’s career. Both works offered sharply defined solos but often ended by involving the soloist in larger movement patterns--powerfully suggesting a sense of family or community or humanity greater than any individual’s experience.

Both also gloried in group deployments so formal, forthright and unhurried they almost looked engraved in space. Indeed, Limon’s gift of simplicity--one idea at a time, fully realized--proved a revelation, both in the former work (set to a score by Norman Dello Joio) and latter one (to Bach).

The “Offering” duet with Nina Watt and Gary Masters, the “silence” and “hate” solos with Bambi Anderson and Roxane D’Orleans Juste in “Time,” also reminded us of Limon’s expressive range--from fluid, softly lyrical buoyancy to percussive gestural attacks and spine-lashing emotionalism.

Limon died 15 years ago, and it may be no coincidence that Susan Linke used an empty chair as a key symbol when addressing the problem of modern dance loyalty and leadership in her piece called “Also Egmont, Bitte” for the company.

Set to a tape of an orchestral rehearsal (with frequent stops, corrections and repeats), “Egmont” shaped formal patterns of group movement and brief, dramatic mime into an examination of succession in modern dance--the defections from and rivalries among companies, the emergence of new leaders, the conflicts involved in sustaining a tradition.

It is tempting to make Linke’s images specific, to watch Limon Company artistic director Carla Maxwell portraying a newly consecrated dance guru, for example, and see the same dazed expression and the same white slip that Pina Bausch wore in “Cafe Mueller.”

Even as an abstraction, however, “Egmont” touched on major artistic issues and blazed with imagination. And the dancers, who often had difficulty coping with their Limon legacy on Saturday, here helped show us the no-man’s-land beyond it with skill and dedication.