DANCE REVIEW : Joffrey Mounts an All-Arpino Program at Chandler Pavilion

All-Arpino programs by the Joffrey Ballet are scarcely news--but the three-part bill at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Thursday seemed in danger of proving historic. For all anyone knew at the time, this might have been the final performance of any Gerald Arpino ballet by the company he co-founded.

After resigning as artistic director on Tuesday, Arpino had issued a statement through his lawyer prohibiting the performance of any of his works as of Friday. Two Arpino works are scheduled for Saturday’s performance. Attorneys for both sides were conferring Friday afternoon in an attempt to reach a settlement.

In any case, a company in crisis is something to see. This was a night of virtually faultless dancing, an assertion of spirit and prowess despite the circumstances--and, inevitably, despite the choreography.

Normally a blur of dancers running and jumping through dappled light, “Suite Saint-Saens” (1978) suddenly acquired some potent afterimages: the noble calm of Douglas Martin in the opening section, for example, or the playful flamboyance of Carole Valleskey in the finale. Edward Stierle, of course, jumping madly--but also moments when Peter Narbutas, Deborah Dawn, Tyler Walters and others filled Arpino’s emptiest adagios with deep feeling.

If Jerome Robbins’ faun met Frederick Ashton’s Ondine under a pier some night, you’d have “Sea Shadow” (1962), an adagio to Ravel with lots of rippling limbs and stylized gymnastics. Valerie Madonia and Tom Mossbrucker couldn’t exactly make the liquid posturings look profound, but they danced with great surety, and pianist Stanley Babin accompanied them sensitively.

The new “TWO-A-DAY” extravaganza featured several major cast changes from the previous evening. A listless Jill Davidson led the boys through the top-hat ensemble, Deborah Dawn slinked expertly through the Spanish sequence and, best of all, Jodie Gates gave the Marilyn Miller impersonation a childlike sense of wonder.

John Miner and Allan Lewis shared the program’s conducting duties, with the orchestra sounding especially fine in “Suite Saint-Saens.”