1989--a Year for Testing the Limits

In 1989, Ballet Folklorico discovered rock ‘n’ roll. The Moiseyev turned to Spanish, Argentine and Chinese novelties. The Kirov began dancing Balanchine and L.A. Chamber Ballet found an unlikely muse in Woody Allen.

In 1989, postmodern dancer extraordinaire Bill T. Jones stopped dancing in the middle of “Faith II” to speak about racism, homophobia and the AIDS crisis. The super-refined Loretta Livingston danced topless for the first time and the super-daring Tim Miller for once stripped no further than his Lederhosen .

The year’s local milestones also included the revival by Cal State Los Angeles of the annual “Dance Kaleidoscope” series (a valuable if uneven community showcase) and “Black Choreographers Moving Toward the 21st Century,” a festival that challenged some entrenched assumptions about artists of color.

The year brought many sudden losses--of artists and institutions (Alvin Ailey was both). The end of the Herald-Examiner hit the Los Angeles dance community especially hard, since the paper had maintained a strong focus on local activity. Below is a selection of memorable dance events from one aficionado’s logbook.

MODERN DANCE: Several of 1989’s highlights came courtesy of San Diego-based Sushi Performance Gallery, arts presenters of vision and daring. From Joe Goode’s prophetic, interdisciplinary “Disaster Series” in May through Stephen Petronio’s seductive attempts in June to rekindle our sense of touch and on to Molissa Fenley’s grueling survival-solo in November to “Le Sacre du Printemps” ( all of it), this was a superb season. San Diego also saw the premiere of John Malashock’s brooding “Departure of the Youngsters” in April.

Black choreographers triumphed in 1989 long before the “Black Choreographers” festival, starting with Garth Fagan’s sensitivity and sophistication (at UCLA in January), Bebe Miller’s startling, intuitive psychodramas (at the Japan America Theatre in February) and the Ailey production of Donald Byrd’s assaultive “Shards” (at the Wiltern in March).

Other impressive visiting companies: Barro Rojo of Mexico City (at Inner City Cultural Center in July,) Ballet Hispanico of New York (in Orange County during April and November), David Gordon (at UCLA in February), Paul Taylor (at UCLA in November) and Elisa Monte (at UC Riverside in April).

BALLET: The year’s Hot Ticket: Kirov curios (at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in August). But 20th-Century ballet was well served by the Joffrey’s reconstruction of Balanchine’s rich and strange “Cotillon” (at the Pavilion in May), by Eliot Feld’s updated classicism in “Petipa Notwithstanding” (in San Diego in April), and by the fascinating classical experiments of Alonzo King in the “Black Choreographers” festival (at the Wadsworth in November).

For many balletomanes, however, the ultimate in up-against-the-wall modernism was William Forsythe’s Frankfurt Ballet (at the Wiltern in June): classical dance tougher, bolder, more contemporary than the art has ever seemed.

The Joffrey, Oakland Ballet and Dance Theatre of Harlem all revived Eugene Loring’s “Billy the Kid” in 1989, but the indelible interpretation belonged to Alexander Kolpin, a stellar guest from the Royal Danish Ballet, in a student performance at UC Irvine in May.

Other performances on this level: Peter Narbutas’ blazingly sardonic Poet in the Joffrey production of Frederick Ashton’s “Illuminations” (at the Pavilion in May), Johan Renvall and Martine van Hamel in an exceptional American Ballet Theatre “Prodigal Son” (at the Shrine in March) and Denise Dabrowski’s radiant Juliet in California Ballet’s “Romeo and Juliet” (in El Cajon in April).

FOLK DANCE: More than ever, the standard two-hour, variety-show format--and even the proscenium theater--seemed crippling for dance forms born to other cultural frames of reference. The Mazowsze show (at the Pasadena Civic in February) was thoroughly corrupt: reducing the greatness of Polish culture to a hard-sell cavalcade. But even the more thoughtful “Africa Oye” (at the Pantages in June) and Tibetan ritual dances by monks of the Namgyal Monastery (at Royce Hall in July) had too many sections and too little time for each.

Weren’t these events, and those like them, just tourist diversions masquerading as dance experiences? Didn’t they reflect a condescending viewpoint (either about other cultures or our own attention span) dangerously out of date?

Happily, “Takigi Noh” (on the Japan America Theatre plaza in September) did experiment with finding an appropriate context for antique movement-theater--though sightline problems, amplification woes and roaming photographers compromised the result.

Smaller, simpler and ultimately more satisfying: Aztec rituals danced in August on the Southwest Museum plaza by the Californian/Mexicano troupe Xipe Totec.

CLOSE TO HOME: Karen Goodman, Tina Gerstler and Mark Mendonca each had a breakthrough year and AMAN reached the quarter-century mark. Highways proved its point in a promise-crammed opening season: There is a lot more major work out there than local presenters previously showed us. But the studio event of 1989 arguably took place at LACE in April: Rudy Perez’s 25-year retrospective, in which his current company members shared some of the great, early solos that gave a soul to postmodernism.

NOT CLOSE ENOUGH: Since late ‘87, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre has won accolades in New York and elsewhere for its lavish “Magic of Katherine Dunham” compilation. However, the company’s 30th anniversary season at the Wiltern in March offered no Dunham--just plenty of wait-till-next-year excuses.