Dancer Puts Emotion Back in Motion

A leggy Adonis with blond cherub curls lunges and turns, as two athletic women vie for his attention. He looks away toward the horizon and a waifish woman hurls herself up onto his back in a tortured plea for communion.

Sounds like just another day in the life of a So Cal lifeguard, right?

Not quite, although the leading man does look the part.

The elusive gent and his emotive consorts are actually ex-Twyla Tharp dancer John Malashock and the members of his dance company, in the midst of one of their passionate treatises on alienation.

Marking the company’s third home season since their 1986 formation, Malashock Dance & Company will perform at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art’s Sherwood Auditorium from Friday through Sunday.

In May, they will make their first major appearance in Los Angeles--a long-overdue career watermark for a troupe that has nabbed critical kudos in San Diego and San Francisco.

This week’s program will include two world premieres: “Stan’s Retreat,” inspired by Carson McCullers’ “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” and set to an original score by Mark Attebery, and “Take This Waltz,” a dance to the songs of Leonard Cohen. The 1989 “Departure of the Youngsters,” also with music by Attebery, rounds out the bill.

These dances share a concern with isolation and the difficulties of taking the road less traveled--something Malashock knows well.

At a time when American dance still bows to New York, this 36-year-old San Diego native is bent on building a world-class company in his hometown.

And, as if that wasn’t enough of a challenge, he’s also forging a romantic style that’s at odds with the austere intellectualism of much contemporary dance.

So, what’s a nice terpsichorean--who’s toured the world with Tharp, appeared on PBS’ “Dance in America,” danced in a benefit with Baryshnikov and graced Paris’ Ballet Blaska--doing in a palm tree place like this?

“Can you imagine starting a company in New York these days?” Malashock asks, referring to the crowding in the Big Apple. “What I exchange in instant visibility I gain in support.

“It feels like working in a void,” he admits. “But that’s also been helpful. It gives me the ability to find out what work I want to do without distraction.”

Malashock doesn’t even miss the artistic synergy of the big city.

“I don’t like what’s out there, and I haven’t for a long time,” he says. “When I was in New York, I stopped going to dance concerts because I couldn’t stand 19 out of 20 things I went to see.”

More often than not, those “19 things” were too cold for this “New Romanticist.”

“There’s been a direction towards an intellectual approach to dance for a long time,” he explains. “My work is not at all in that vein, and that’s going to be my strength.”

Having dancers constantly exposed to such influences would be detrimental, according to Malashock.

“The trends in New York can bend a person’s work, and those trends change quickly. There was that major trend toward a ballet vocabulary in modern dance, and I hope it’s starting to die.”

San Diego, on the other hand, provides a better atmosphere in which to hone a distinctive style.

“In New York there’s so much crossing over between styles that it’s hard to pull people in to your way of working and form a commitment, a cohesive company.

“I’m a little old fashioned,” he says. “I like the idea of companies having a particular style.”

Then, when that style is established, it’s off to bigger challenges.

“The last thing I think of this company being is a San Diego company,” Malashock says. “I’m based here, but I see this as a touring company. The task is getting the reputation out--and getting the company to New York. Soon.”

In New York, where he danced with Tharp for five years, audiences will no doubt find similarities between Malashock the choreographer and Malashock the ex-Tharp dancer.

“Throughout my career, works that had emotionalism and expression and feeling were infinitely more interesting to me,” he says. “They also had a sense of theater, character and a purpose to the use of emotion.

“It’s not enough for me just to have somebody onstage because they’re happy or sad. I like something more specific.”

Which is why so much so-called “postmodern” work baffles Malashock.

“I don’t think I’ll ever understand what audiences like about a Merce Cunningham concert. It has very little to do with people and it’s all structure.”

What Malashock does understand is the artists’ need to create, whether the work ends up being popular or not. “I take a selfish approach,” he says. “It’s not for society. I’m not even--excuse me--doing this for an audience. I do it because I wouldn’t be fulfilled doing anything else.”

Malashock Dance & Company performs Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., and Sunday at 8 p.m. in the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art’s Sherwood Auditorium. Admission is $9 for members of the museum and the San Diego Area Dance Alliance, as well as for students and seniors; $13 for general admission. Tickets can be purchased in advance at the museum bookstore and at Ticketmaster outlets .