DANCE REVIEWS : L.A. Contemporary Theater in ‘Games’

Teasing and flouncing, rhyming and jiving, the ragtag crowd of children in Donald McKayle’s “Games” conjure up a perpetual-motion street scene from a more innocent age. As performed Friday night in Campus Theatre at El Camino College by Los Angeles Contemporary Dance Theater, the 1951 work came across with its spirited energy firmly intact.

A cappella traditional ditties sung by Forrest Gardner and Flo Lyle--who observe the passing scene from a re-creation of Paul Bertelsen’s original skeletal brick house set--are taken up by the dancers, whose sidewalk activities begin in sheer fun and end in the pursuit of one of the girls by a much-feared, unseen policeman.

The dancers, outfitted in copies of Remy Charlip’s vintage kiddie duds, milked every bit of humor from roles that deftly combine sassy acting with stylized games of tag and jump rope. Michael Lee was particularly effective as the boy whose imagination turns a couple of soda cans into a pair of binoculars, a bull’s horns, machine guns, a woman’s earrings and finally a ridiculous pair of shoes.

This warmly cohesive company seems to bring a sense of passion to everything it dances, even when the material seems incoherent, cliched or poorly paced. Other offerings included company artistic director Lula Washington’s “Women in the Streets,” “Urban Man” and “Let Their Voices Be Heard.”

A “Gospel Suite,” with contributions from several choreographers, ended the evening on a fervently energetic note.