DANCE REVIEW : John Malashock’s ‘Flames’ at San Diego’s Sushi Gallery

Somewhere in the second or third Golden Age of Twyla Tharp’s modern dance company, John Malashock appeared: a blond, curly-haired, all-American dreamboat who brought devastating efficiency to Tharp’s increasingly sardonic depictions of contemporary male-female relationships.

Tharp’s dancers are disbanded now, with Tharp herself a fixture of American Ballet Theatre, but Malashock is still a virtuoso of manipulation and rejection--this time for his own, new, four-member company in San Diego.

Introduced Thursday at the Sushi Performance Gallery by his troupe, Malashock & Co., Malashock’s flawed but exciting, three-part “Flames” focuses on the same type of exploitive, combative coupling that Tharp sketched in “Short Stories,” the duets of “The Catherine Wheel” and other works. In their collaborative “Dragging the River” (music by David Stout), Malashock and guest Nancy McCaleb hurl themselves through a spectacular cycle of confrontations that explore the need for intimacy and the fear of it.

The three duets of “A Walk on the World” (music by Talking Heads, Laurie Anderson, Brian Eno and David Byrne) each isolate a facet of incompatibility: the tension, resignation and outright hostility of accommodation to a partner.

Less linear and characterizational, Malashock’s latest work, “Up in Flames” (music by Jimi Hendix) artfully abstracts gestural material introduced in the other pieces: hands that reach for someone and then fling them away, for example. And in its complex, high-velocity group gymnastics it moves beyond Tharp to a new level of physical daring--though the theme of “Short Stories” always stays at least implicit.

Trouble is, “Short Stories” represented a change of pace for Tharp, not what she did best. She never really probed the character resources of dance drama as deeply as others, and neither does Malashock.

Much of the time, his dancers’ portrayals remain simple and static. Nobody grows, nobody learns. Elsewhere, the sensational unity of impulse in the duets contradicts the notion of isolation that he’s trying to dramatize. How can we believe that these people need to be apart when they move together as one?

Ultimately, nearly all of Malashock’s thematic priorities are overwhelmed in just this way: blitzed by the thrilling risk and beauty and high achievement of the dancing.

Just as Tharp caused us to stop apologizing for American eclecticism and start pointing with pride, Malashock knows how to melt down and fuse every movement form he’s ever seen or studied. And in the process he achieves something greater than the sum of Kate Lounsbury’s brittle elegance, Debi Toth’s wary sophistication, Maj Xander’s fierce linear drive, McCaleb’s earth-mother solidity and his own sleek glamour. Out of “Flames” he creates a genuine company.

So his work isn’t as successful for what it says as how it moves. So what? Is that such a terrible fate for a choreographer? Right now, at 34, Malashock is the master of a style of modern dance that hasn’t looked so full of life and endless promise since Tharp turned highbrow and classical.

He is ambitious, learning fast and he dances brilliantly. Give him time to develop his expressive powers or to decide they aren’t worth the bother. Meanwhile, if it’s messages you want, call your service.