Dance Reviews : Kolpin in ‘Billy the Kid’ at UCI Faculty Concert

The Joffrey Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem and Oakland Ballet each brought authoritative productions of “Billy the Kid” to Southern California in the past six weeks. But all too often, the leading dancer in Eugene Loring’s 1938 morality tale seemed miscast: Billy the Hunk, Billy the Prince, Billy the Weird.

On Wednesday, the Kid finally arrived: Alexander Kolpin of the Royal Danish Ballet, appearing as a stellar guest in a 50th anniversary staging at Loring’s former home base, the Fine Arts Village Theater, UC Irvine.

Short, slender and coltish (he turned 24 Thursday), Kolpin not only looked ideally youthful, he danced with the hyperkinetic propulsion of a teen-ager in a big hurry. Moreover, he provided a number of sharp insights about the character’s immaturity: Billy’s intent, childlike fascination with the death of his victims, for instance, or his sudden pangs of loneliness just before the final encounter with Pat Garrett. Meet the Wild West’s rebel without a cause.

Kolpin had never danced the role anywhere until Wednesday, and inevitably there were unfinished details. However, his performance was obviously world class in its originality, eloquence, technique and sense of style. UCI students danced all the other roles, but their inexperience showed less in this gesture-based story ballet than in other pure-dance vehicles on the program.

For the occasion, Patricia L. Whiteside--who also supervised Donald Bradburn’s staging of “Billy”--mounted a production of Loring’s last ballet, “Time Unto Time.”

Created in 1980 (two years before Loring’s death), it resembled “Billy” in its imaginative expansion of realistic gestures into formal dance motifs, in its emphasis upon processional movement and individuals set against a corps, in the theme of a collective destiny.

Danced to Bartok’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste, it developed this premise through situational rather than narrative structures: episodes for up to 15 dancers expressing wild anguish and equally desperate hope. A brooding, masterfully crafted work, it deserves to be better known.

The evening also offered a shaky but promising run-through of Bournonville’s “Flower Festival” pas de deux and two works by faculty choreographers: “Sing, Sing, Sing” (Donna France’s slick, Broadway-style tap extravaganza to music by Duke Ellington) and “Nightfall” (Dianne Howe’s weighty study of layered, formal choric motion to an original score by Paul Hodgins).

The most accomplished of the student dancers included Eileen Ordonez (the Mother/Sweetheart in “Billy”), Erin Holmes (the leader in “Time Unto Time”) and Peter Duerr (prominent in both Loring ballets). Canned music accompanied all the dances except “Nightfall.” The program continues through Saturday.