Music and Dance Reviews : Viveca Vasquez Defies Expectations at LACE

Puerto Rican choreographer Viveca Vasquez makes works that seem to announce their themes but then defy expectations by expressing something entirely different.

At LACE on Friday, the three parts of Vasquez’s “Malad Justed” began with a slide show, movie and/or videotape establishing a subject or context: footage of a woman in bed (“Mira y que--3rd Wash”), glimpses of a woman doing laundry and snapshots of growing up (“Bothbirth”), views of a produce market, people on a beach and a landscape rushing by (“Vieques Ain’t Nor Was No Fish”).

Vasquez’s choreography occasionally referred to this screen imagery--the use of a mattress in “Mira y que,” for instance, along with the rocking-a-baby gestures in “Bothbirth” and the swimming motions in “Vieques.” However, much of the time she explored only formal dance issues.

Loss of balance formed the heart of her choreography, with hopping on one foot, knee-walking and lunge-like falls occurring throughout the program. Shared weight and other tactics of support between Vasquez and Eduardo Alegria dominated “Mira y que.” Even more than the frequent, sudden shifts of impetus, the action of teetering unified the “Bothbirth” solo. And though “Vieques” added a text to its visuals spelling out the devastation wrought upon a small island by both the U.S. Navy and Hurricane Hugo, the dancing (especially in the solo for Dorcas Roman) again made tests of equilibrium its primary concern.

Is Vasquez commenting ironically on the new political imperatives of ‘90s artmaking--or trying to cloak a hermetic movement style in contemporary multimedia effects and social references? Impossible to determine in this first West Coast performance. But the suspicion lingers that she is a very private artist making an uneasy bargain with the world outside her dance studio.