Moiseyev Repertoire Adds the Spice of Latin Dances

The name Moiseyev may be synonymous with the Russian folk dance. But when the Moiseyev Dance Company arrives at the Pantages on Tuesday, the program will include at least two dances of Latin origin.

Receiving their American premieres: “Malamba,” based on Argentine folk dances, and “Aragonnaise Jota,” a Spanish dance. Igor Moiseyev says he was eager to present them here. In fact, if he had his way, his company (currently in the middle of its seventh American tour) would have brought along less of what has already been seen and more of his newer works.

But, as he indicated with subdued frustration during an interview backstage at Radio City Music Hall in New York (where the company performed to sellout crowds for two weeks), sponsors prefer to offer audiences repertory they have previously seen and taken to heart.

“We had a hard time persuading our impresarios to include the two dances,” Moiseyev said, speaking through an interpreter who travels with the company. He tried to get a Venezuelan dance, “Jaropa,” included in the touring repertory, but was told he was suggesting too many “foreign” pieces.

“Spanish Ballad,” a recent, more dramatic Moiseyev work that departs from audience expectation--it distills the story of “Carmen” down to seven minutes--was originally not scheduled for the tour but was included, on short notice, in the program for Washington, D.C., where the company performed in a smaller theater.

“Beautiful Spanish dances have always inspired me,” said Moiseyev, who turned 83 last month. He finds the sources for his dances in “material I see that reveals the nature of people.”

The music he chose for the “Aragonnaise Jota,” which is a buoyant ensemble work led by five soloists, is an arrangement of Mikhail Glinka’s “Jota.” Moiseyev noted that his creative process is similar to what Glinka did--drawing on authentic Spanish material but presenting it with his own personal, Russian approach.

The dancers play castanets during the piece; Moiseyev scoffed at any suggestion that this might have presented difficulties or required special training: “We are not so primitive that we cannot play castanets! It comes naturally, with the music. In the ‘Aragonnaise Jota’ the use of castanets is not very complicated.”

Moiseyev’s “Malamba,” which premiered a few months ago and is the newest work in the repertory, is not the first dance Moiseyev has choreographed drawing on Argentine sources. After the company’s first South American tour in 1963, he was inspired to choreograph “Gaucho,” a dance for three men.

The troupe’s most recent visit to Argentina, last year, must have been equally inspiring; this time he choreographed an expansive work for nine couples, set to an arrangement (by music director Anatoli Gusj) of Argentine folk melodies.

“ ‘Gaucho’ was a more romantic work; this one is in a more contemporary style,” the choreographer explained. “In ‘Malamba,’ there is a kind of competition going on, in terms of artistry and technique, between the dancers. Each has a small moment to display his abilities.”

Like the earlier work, “Malamba” incorporates dancing on the sides of the boot soles, in imitation of a gaucho’s bowlegged gait. In addition, there is a good deal of the vigorous jumping and the multidirectional, precise footwork that are Moiseyev trademarks.

In these two new, Latin-flavored dances, as in other repertory standards, Moiseyev draws on his years of extensive travel and observation of folk dance, but doesn’t make authenticity his foremost concern. No experts were brought in; the Spanish and Argentinian styles were taught to the dancers by Moiseyev himself.

These styles may present them with a more difficult challenge than the more familiar Russian material does, but Moiseyev says that only makes it “more interesting” to them. “To learn dances is the same as learning foreign languages,” he remarks.

His dances grow out of material that, as he puts it, “infatuates” him. But he takes it beyond the style in which he encounters it. “All these dances we show are theatricalized dances, and I do this absolutely consciously. This is the principle of our work--to raise the folk arts to the level of highly professional art, to add all the elements of theatrical artistry.

“Authentic dances may be interesting for research, for a person who studies folklore, but our task is to raise the level of these dances for stage presentation, revealing all those elements which are potentially there but have not been revealed.”