MUSIC AND DANCE REVIEWS : MOVING ARTS CO.

Newly formed modern dance companies almost always introduce themselves with a program of sober, small-scale work at some intimate studio venue. Not Moving Arts. No indeed.

Not only did this local troupe appear in the wide open spaces of the Wilshire Ebell Theatre on Friday, but directors Ann Keeling and Janet Walker fielded 19 dancers, four musicians, two actors and a juggling team in an extravaganza emphasizing ensemble choreography and whimsical comedy.

Both preoccupations are rare in emerging dance artists and so is the commitment to sharply defined execution evident throughout the evening. The works themselves, however, remained cutesie sketches, seldom developing any richness of image or implication, any sense of dimension or even intelligence.

The best of the eight Moving Arts dances reworked concepts of towering predecessors--especially Pilobolus and Mummenschanz. Still, a position-the-mannequin duet titled “Wo-Maniq-Inipulation” (by Walker and Rene Gubernick) did achieve great cleverness in its unlikely partnering gambits.

In addition, the derivative but nicely crafted processional group piece “A Bedouin’s Fortnight” (by Walker and Keeling) resourcefully suggested the movement qualities of desert creatures. And Keeling and Walker danced well enough in their “Moving Art” and “The Rorschach Phenomenon” to make the evolving, symmetrical, Pilobolean patterns of gymnastic body sculpture tolerably fresh.