DANCE REVIEW : Lo-Tec’s Offering of Limon and Watt Provides a Little Taste of Heaven

San Diego dance buffs awaited a visit from the renowned Limon Dance Company as part of the “risky dancing” series sponsored by the San Diego Foundation for the Performing Arts this year.

Unfortunately, the risks proved insurmountable, and the debt-ridden foundation dropped the Limon troupe (keepers of the flame for deceased modern dance pioneer Jose Limon) from the lineup in a desperate attempt to salvage the organization.

Happily for local aficionados, Three’s Company’s Lo-Tec Series picked up some of the slack by featuring Limon’s acclaimed principal dancer, Nina Watt, in its first concert of the summer. Watt, a galvanizing performer who has danced the master’s work worldwide since joining his company in 1972, performed two Limon dances.

She also included a smattering of Anna Sokolow, another early modern dance visionary whose work has been overlooked in San Diego. Although “Escape” and “The End?”--both culled from Sokolow’s modern dance masterpiece, “Rooms”--might have come as a surprise to the zealots at the opening concert Saturday night, it was a natural choice for Watt, whose modern dance background abounds with names from the art form’s rich past.

With little in the way of lighting support to heighten the dramatic elements in her dancing, and a less-than-ideal sound track blurting out the scores, Watt thrust herself into the three-piece program with a vengeance.

She opened the concert with Limon’s “Chaconne,” first performed at the Humphrey-Weidman Studio in New York back in 1942. Decked out in a black velvet evening dress, her fair hair knotted at the nape of her neck, Watt allowed the scratchy strands of Bach’s violin solo to propel her through its sweeping circular phrases.

Watt is the only member of the current company who actually worked with Limon, and it shows in her performance. With elegant port de bras and expressive dramatic intensity, Watt embodied the very spirit of the Limon style, and earned the wild applause that followed her appearance.

A quick costume change and she was back for a pair of excerpts from Sokolow’s “Rooms.” Using fluttering steps that seemed to barely skim the surface of the stage, Watt executed the wordless ballet as if shrouded in a dreamy fog. The dance is fraught with emotions, and this highly dramatic dancer never failed to deliver. Too bad she offered only a fleeting look at this obscure modern dance classic.

For her finale, Watt paid homage to the earth mother of modern dance in Limon’s “Dances for Isadora.” The five-movement piece (corresponding to the five periods in Duncan’s life) are usually danced by different dancers. But with a makeshift dressing room in plain view of the audience, and a few appropriate hairdo and makeup changes, Watt carried off the entire piece--beginning with Duncan’s youthful vitality in “Primavera” and culminating with the brilliant image of grief in “Scarf Dance” that symbolizes the dancer’s tragic death.

A no-frills solo concert with uncomfortable seats, poor acoustics and minimal technical support can never take the place of a full-blown Limon Dance Company concert. But last weekend’s Lo-Tec performance by Nina Watt was manna from heaven for the small band of faithful on hand for the occasion.