2 New Dance Works to Have Debuts in O.C. : Arts: One of the works, ‘The Beauty of One Divides,’ was choreographed by Carl Corry for Ballet Pacifica. The other, Donald McKayle’s ‘Ringalevio,’ was created for UC Irvine dancers.

One sign of a healthy arts community is the number of new works it produces. This week the local vital signs are looking better than usual with the presentation of two new dances.

Joffrey Ballet dancer Carl Corry has created “The Beauty of One Divides” for Ballet Pacifica, while Donald McKayle, of dance, theater, film and television fame, has choreographed his first work, “Ringalevio,” for students at UC Irvine (Review, F41). McKayle became a professor of dance at UCI in September. Both works can be seen this weekend.

Corry zipped in to Laguna Beach recently to create “The Beauty of One Divides” for Ballet Pacifica in just four days. Professional obligations took him back to New York, where he talked about the work by phone.

Although Corry cited an album of guitar arrangements of sacred music by Bach, Mozart and others as the inspiration for the choreography, he said, “I did not intend to make a religious statement.”

Still, the closing sections, he said, evoke “the tediousness of what we go through in life and how--when we’re inspired by music--we can open up and let go and be free for a time and then go back to the work that we do.”

This is Corry’s third effort at choreography. He created his first ballet in a workshop for the Joffrey’s junior company (Joffrey II) in 1988. His second work was a seven-minute duet for him and a Joffrey student, Linda Bennett, who went on to the Milwaukee Ballet.

The new piece also came out of his work with Bennett.

“I had actually started a 3 1/2-minute solo with Linda over a year ago in the studio,” Corry said. “It grew. It’s now for five women, but with sort of a central figure. And that wasn’t my intention originally. I had originally wanted it to be a solo for one woman, but it worked so well, bringing in other women, one by one.”

Corry credits his parents, and especially his father, for his inspiration.

“My mother and father founded the Southern Ballet of Atlanta in 1946,” he said. “They were really regional ballet pioneers. My father choreographed over 100 ballets for the company. I grew up in that atmosphere. I absorbed a great deal from him.”

The company dissolved in the mid-1980s after his parents’ deaths, he said, and by that time he was a member of the Joffrey.

He had started as a Joffrey scholarship student in 1975, moved up to the junior company (Joffrey II) and joined the main company in 1978.

He has been seen in Orange County in Taylor’s “Arden Court,” Arpino’s “Light Rain” and “Italian Suite” and, most recently, the Joffrey “Nutcracker,” among other works.

Now that he’s had a taste of choreographing, he intends to pursue it.

“I wasn’t sure when I did my first ballet,” he said. “You don’t know. But I feel very strongly now that I will continue to do choreography one way or another.”

He is enthusiastic about working with the Ballet Pacifica dancers.

“I had to teach (‘The Beauty of One Divides’) to them in four days. We’re talking about a lot of steps. I just don’t think they could have done it unless they were, one, talented and had some obvious professional skills, and, two, felt strongly about it.

“That was important to me . . . because if dancers feel excited about a work, they can do pretty miraculous things.”

Incidentally, a recently published report that Ballet Pacifica and the Laguna Playhouse have reached an impasse in negotiating dates at the theater troupe’s Moulton Theatre for the ballet company’s next season is exaggerated, according to company artistic director Molly Lynch.

“We always have had to negotiate concert dates,” Lynch said Thursday. “Some years it’s been a little easier. This particular year seems to be a little tighter for (Laguna Playhouse officials) because they had hoped to have their second theater going--in the GTE Building (in Laguna Beach)--but that has not worked out. . . .

“I feel that the Playhouse is open to discussing possible solutions. It would mean a compromise on both sides. But that’s pretty much as usual, too.”

Lynch said that both sides are working on the new schedule and hope to announce dates “within a few weeks.”

Carl Corry’s “The Beauty of One Divides” will receive its premiere by Ballet Pacifica, which commissioned the work, at 8 p.m. Saturday and at the 3 p.m. Sunday at the Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, in Laguna Beach. Also on the program: Kathy Kahn’s new “Rustic Concerto” (music by Vivaldi) and Molly Lynch’s “Characters” (to Bach). Tickets: $12, regular admission; $10 for seniors and children under 12. Information: (714) 642-9275.

For his new “Ringalevio,” Donald McKayle found inspiration in a children’s game in which teams compete in capturing each other.

“It’s really used as a metaphor, just to do a little investigation into attitudes and activities of youth today,” McKayle said in a recent phone interview from UC Irvine.

The dance is for 10 people and is set to three works by Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla.

“The music came first,” McKayle admitted. “I sort of have a love affair with his music, and when (UCI officials) asked me to do the work, I went directly to it.”

Although he says he is “very happy with the current stage of the work,” McKayle said that he is not sure if it is finished.

“It keeps developing,” he said. “I might make it longer. I don’t know, I feel there is another step I want to take it to. The length of the music has predetermined it (so far). But I don’t feel finished. I would like to have one more twist to it.

“When you get it to a point where something needs to be stated and then leave it hanging, that is interesting. Audiences don’t like the whole thing finalized. They like to participate in their own creative viewing and fish out something. Also, that leaves room for lots of debate, but always with the idea that there is knowledge that has been passed on.”

As for the role his students have played in its creation, McKayle says that is critical.

“You build it on the talent that you have,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what you have in mind. If people you have can’t make it happen, it doesn’t exist.”

Donald McKayle’s “Ringalevio,” a work created for UC Irvine dancers, will receive its first performances at 8 p.m. today and at 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday at the Fine Arts Village Theatre at UCI. The program also will include works by Fokine, Israel Gabriel and Pat Carney. Tickets: $11. Information: (714) 856-6616.