Music and Dance Reviews : Margalit Performs at Santa Monica College

Elfin and mischievous, Margalit scampers about in a delicate and private way and tells simple little tales amplified by her expressive face and powerful voice. At Santa Monica College on Friday night, her solo program ranged from a delicious yarn about her youth in Aden, the former British protectorate, to a collection of rather fey little pieces about motherhood, children and world peace.

Outfitted in a bright yellow gown and a fanciful headdress concocted by Leslie Yarmo, she evoked a land of “hot wind, hot sun” and a loving, vivacious family in “Through the Gates of Aden.” Sketching in the details with rhythmic, repetitious bursts of simple words--in the fashion of a story for small children--she would stop to wail with the harsh, sustained tones of a muezzin calling the faithful. Her birdlike intensity and quicksilver shifts in tone and posture made the piece truly magical.

In “I Wish” and “Mom, Goliath is Dead”--groups of short, simple poems delivered with passages of drumming, piping, eccentric, springy little walks and animal sounds--Margalit became a feisty little child. (“I wish my mom were president of the world!”) A trifle cloying, these pieces were nonetheless peppered with wit and invention, qualities in short supply in “I Am a Mother; I Am a Wonderful Mother.”

The final piece, “Yemenite Wedding,” looked--with its elaborate costumes and tapestry set (by David Sharir) as though it would unfold at a leisurely pace. Alas, it was over before the five characters had quite taken root in the mind’s eye.