Malashock Dancers Perform in L.A. Tonight

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.

They will perform tonight and Saturday at the Japan America Theatre. It is their first major Los Angeles appearance--a long overdue career watermark for a troupe that has nabbed critical kudos in San Diego and San Francisco.

The program will include two works which had their world premieres in San Diego last month: “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.

Reviewing the San Diego performance, Times dance writer Lewis Segal wrote: “Malashock’s choreography has always focused on the abrasions of relationships, but his two premieres suggested a new sensitivity toward possible gains as well as losses. This is a dynamic young artist changing as fast as his characters, yet always exciting for the commitment and immediacy of his work.”

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 toured the world during his five years 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 that city’s crowded dance scene. “What I exchange in instant visibility I gain in support.”

The hometown security may explain why even L.A. wasn’t an option.

“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 says he doesn’t even miss the artistic synergy of the Big Apple.

“I don’t like what’s out there, and I haven’t for a long time,” he says. “There’s been a direction towards an intellectual approach to dance for a long time. My work is not at all in that vein, and that’s going to be my strength.”

“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.”

Veteran Tharp watchers 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.”