Music and Dance Reviews : Tharp Weekend Includes ‘Down Under’ at UCLA

Part of an exciting, overambitious Twyla Tharp weekend in Royce Hall, UCLA, the choreographer’s newest work evokes one of her earliest classics.

Premiered in Melbourne two months ago, “Four Down Under” deploys Jennifer Way, Tom Rawe, Richard Colton and Amy Spencer in sequences of sharply articulated foot-rhythms, sudden shifts of direction and surprise stops. At first, they dance without music, synchronized by hand-claps, in a manner recalling that 1971 masterwork of formal rigor, “The Fugue.”

Eventually Bruce Smeaton’s New Wave scat-singing is heard and Tharp introduces motifs based on mistakes (people bumping into one another) and feigned exhaustion. Moreover, her choreography exploits the partnering prowess that was never a feature of early Tharp. But the link to “The Fugue” persists in the implacable clockwork exactitude of the dancing.

With its sensational David Byrne score and group dancing of unprecedented daring, “The Golden Section” (1981) may be the greatest rock ballet ever created. But this explosive excerpt from “The Catherine Wheel” is just as meticulous a work as “The Fugue” or “Four Down Under.” Here, however, Tharp’s precision is camouflaged by the glorious, engulfing energy.

Of familiar works, the company bungles “The Little Ballet,” Tharp’s 1984 classical confection (to Glazunov), created for Mikhail Baryshnikov and American Ballet Theatre. Former Ballet Theatre veterans Gil Boggs and Elaine Kudo execute the steps decently enough but the mood of the piece, the style, simply isn’t there.

Problematic lighting often washes out the projection screen in “Bad Smells” (1982), a work that should offer the audience two perspectives on the same dancing: a far-away theatrical view versus a close-up, technological alternative provided by a hand-held TV camera on stage. The assaultive Glenn Branca music, shredded costumes and violent movement make this Tharp’s Rough Trade ballet, but her current company isn’t always convincing at depicting menace.

“Nine Sinatra Songs” (1982) always has been a popular showcase for Tharp’s company, but now this string of ballroom duets looks like her partnering laboratory: a context for developing ideas that dominated many of her following works. The current cast boasts several memorable performances: The impish Colton (with Spencer) in “Somethin’ Stupid,” the hot and stylish Shelley Washington (with Robert Moses Jr.) in “Strangers in the Night” and, especially, the coldly manipulative Rawe (with Kudo) in “That’s Life.”