Los Angeles Festival : PEREZ SUMS UP WITH NEW WORKS

Rudy Perez remarked in these pages last week that his program for the Los Angeles Festival would represent a summing up of his achievements as a choreographer--and he was right.

But, except for a revival of his classic postmodern solo “Countdown” (1965), Perez presented only new works at the Tom Bradley Theatre of the Los Angeles Theatre Center on Saturday.

So he accomplished his “summing up” by re-investigating modes of modern dance and performance that he had previously pioneered and perfected. Sometimes this process seemed to result in an odd double vision: Perez commenting on how distressingly easy it has become for him to create the kind of work he’s known for.

Certainly, the quartet “Equaltime” suggested that Perez is ready to burn his bridges. Here the dancers’ incessant smiles, glamorous makeup, sleek body-wear, self-celebrating neo-aerobics, plus their cozy interplay with an on-stage composer (Carl Byron) and scenic painter (Steve DeGroodt), added up to a devastating portrait of a California art scene vitiated by vacant craftsmanship and chic, unchallenging collaboration.

In “Twice,” Perez returned to weighty dance drama, revealing through artful use of formal repetition that the restless, alienated characters portrayed by Linda Hinojosa and Jeffrey Grimaldo had more in common than they knew. But, curiously, the dancing ended long before its accompaniment (a Laurie Anderson-ish mix of portentous Jacki Apple text and rhythmic Tom Recchion music). Could the reason be Perez’s impatience with the Well-Made failed-relationship duet (or any ‘80s formula) as a creative outlet?

Reflecting the structural gambits of a bright, propulsive Lloyd Rogers composition for what sounded like electric harpsichord, Perez’s “Coastal Acts” also embodied the surreal mystery of slide-screen images by Charles Berliner. Indeed, the tension between music and visuals defined a powerful force field for Perez to probe.

Dressed in revealing unisex costumes that looked simultaneously archaic and futuristic, his dancers warily established a foothold in some unknown environment, their concentration pulling us into a quasidramatic situation that would never be explained or resolved.

This vision of a group marooned in hostile terrain, of inexplicable and omnipresent threat, is central to the work Perez has made in Los Angeles in the last nine years. And it derives from the unbearable but undefined loss hovering over “Countdown,” that atmospheric, eloquent portrait-in-stillness first performed by Perez at Judson Church, New York, 22 years ago.

His interpretation of the solo Saturday had a searing immediacy at odds with a reflective, almost nostalgic mood in some of his earlier performances. As always, Perez told the truth unsparingly, inspired his company to a high standard of execution and confirmed his vital role as the conscience of Los Angeles dance.