DANCE REVIEW : SMITH TROUPE AT BARNSDALL

Billed as “part Woody Allen, part Martha Graham,” Trina Smith’s terpsichorean creations really belong to the wobbly realm of college recital. Performed by six dancers Sunday night at the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre, these are pieces with one saving grace: brevity.

In “A Fighting Chance,” Christi Lucas-Goldberg and Tom Rachal fix each other with laser-beam stares and enlarge their palm-to-palm tussles into inconclusive little shoves to the floor.

“Woman x 3” exhibits three faces of Eve--scrubbing housewife (Katherine Molony-Duncan), awkwardly vamping siren (Lori Meyers) and ballet-dancing goddess on a pedestal (Peggy Magee). As the piece progresses, the dancers exchange roles.

In “Nightmare,” Lucas-Goldberg experiences some difficulty in reading a letter, a task interrupted by furious contractions and a spate of foot tapping. Any hoped-for psychological overtones were canceled out by Smith’s confusion of erratic movement with profundity and Lucas-Goldberg’s sturdy, “Look-Ma-I’m-acting” stage presence.

“ ‘52 Pick-Up” presents a cloying slice of sisterly life. One girl walks about in a romantic daze, two others poke fun and a fourth reads, stopping only to deliver a whispered message to the romantic lass (who stalks out) and to toss a deck of cards in the air.

The only exception to Smith’s brand of cheery didacticism and cliched Graham movement was “Quarks,” a sloppy free-form aerobics routine. The spirit of Woody Allen was nowhere to be seen.