KAREN GOODMAN WORKS PAST ‘BROKEN DREAMS’

Los Angeles may be the land of opportunity for the aspiring rich and famous, but for modern-dance choreographer Karen Goodman “it’s also the land of broken dreams.

“People come out here when they can’t make it in New York,” Goodman says, wiping sweat from her forehead after a rehearsal for her “Enforced Gravity,” premiering at Danceworks Studio (7315 Melrose Ave. in West Hollywood) on Aug. 29.

“But there is great anomie in L.A. dance. There isn’t much attention by the public--nobody’s interested. Being a local artist isn’t very glamorous. The solution is to confront that and then go on to make work that is different from the rest because it’s intimate.”

On the surface, Goodman exudes a professionalism that characterizes her 15-year career here as a respected teacher of modern dance, a performer in the city’s most coveted venues, a leader of her own dance company, a member of the now-defunct Los Angeles Area Dance Alliance and now a board member of its successor, the Dance Resource Center.

But deep down, Goodman says she fears “the big issues: the bomb, AIDS, where to put the trash. I mean all the trash, the nuclear trash.” She’s sure that “these are grave times.”

Referring to her solo dance concert, she says that “ gravity means many things, but it mostly means you can’t escape your life. You must confront it and learn how to fall.”

Hardly a motto for a complacent America, maybe, but Goodman feels this philosophy may come in handy in the ‘90s, when “slick balletic post-modernism” may look shallow next to the “varying uses of vulnerability, intimacy and emotion in dance” that she’s learned from mentors including Rudy Perez and Gloria Newman.

While unabashedly “proud” of her own technique--”I’m a damn good dancer”--she says she’d like to free herself from the pop-cultural Ramboism of the ‘80s.

“I want to get closer to the gut. To reinvent modern dance of the ‘30s . . . to deal with basic movement issues that reflect basic emotional issues.”

“This is a real risky business,” she confides. “Stripping things down. If I go too far it’s simplistic, cliched, boring. If I don’t go far enough, it’s superficial. If it works, it’s an arrow straight to the soul.”

Goodman’s shot is aimed at the heart of her own vulnerability. If having a son has put her in touch with “the childish fears we’ve all learned to cover up as we get older,” then she’s even more bold about her adult qualms. She admits that “fear of being ignored by the public and the press” was instrumental in her decision to self-produce her work “as soon as it was ready” in her studio.

“I would have preferred a bigger, more theatrical space,” she admits. “It would have been part of giving this piece its due. But finally it was more important to do it sooner than later . . . before everyone was just burnt-out” from the upcoming Los Angeles Festival.

Does her pragmatism act as a crutch to balance ambition with disappointment? “It’s a shield, “ she concedes. “I know that L.A. artists are not taken seriously. Why? Because some don’t take themselves seriously. I have a real New York attitude. Basically, I work hard, and so do a few others. But most everyone else out here is pretty laid-back.

“The killer is that the dancers aren’t interested in each other. Nobody takes class; the handful of modern dance classes aren’t even full. Can you believe that nobody comes to each other’s concerts?”

Still, she doesn’t want to “blame the scene” for her own career “starts and stops,” and acknowledges that “my work’s better now than it’s ever been and is the most deserving of attention, and as a result I’m ready to push it more.”

To help remedy the “isolation L.A. dancers feel,” she intends to open up her studio for performances and rehearsals after she’s performed in the Fringe Festival.

The word fringe conjures up a hint of the resentment she feels about the attention paid to international artists. “My work is as good as theirs,” she says. “It may not be anything special, but neither is theirs, and I’m more honest.”

Can Goodman explain honesty in dance terms? “One way is by showing disintegration,” she replies. “To dance so long or so fast that after a while the audience sees not only the dance but the mortal dancer whose lungs are heaving and whose legs are shaking.”

“Then the audience sees two layers. It’s like looking through a transparent clock face to see the workings. The workings are beautiful and begin to take on their own kind of magic, but the magic of whatever makes those hands go around vanishes and we are on closer terms with the true nature of the clock.”

Indeed, Goodman seems to be on true terms with her own internal clock. At 39, she knows that “I can’t rely on this grueling solo work for much longer.” Even though she feels more “experimental” and more apt to work with “improvisation and emotional depth” now than when she had a company, she hopes to have dancers in the future and “to be able to pay them, to go to New York . . . get bookings.”

For now, she returns to the rueful resignation that characterizes her movement vocabulary and world view. “You have to be able to fall, to let go, in order to land.

“Gravity, like death, is a fact of life. All we can do is paint our planes beautiful colors and practice our landings. You resign yourself to that and then the ultimate defiance begins: You make work that’s your own.”