Dancing Around a Concert Problem

Lo-Tec concerts can make for strange bedfellows. This weekend at Three’s Company’s Hillcrest studio is a case in point.

Improvisation Inc. was scheduled to share the program with San Diego-based Pamela Turner at 8:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday evening. Pairing Turner’s powerful dance drama with some improvised kinetics imported from Santa Barbara was not exactly a marriage made in heaven. But it was a practical solution for Lo-Tec organizer, Jean Isaacs, who hoped to flesh out the evening’s entertainment by adding Turner’s 45-minute piece (which played to sold-out houses at Sushi last year) with another work.

The improv troupe said it didn’t have enough dancers and pulled out of the commitment earlier this month, leaving the Lo-Tec series holding the bag. Fortunately, Three’s Company’s resident choreographers and a few of its company dancers came to the rescue with a mini-concert to balance Turner’s portion of the program.

This weekend’s surprise appearance comes as a windfall for Three’s Company fans because the troupe was not scheduled for any Lo-Tec appearances this summer. In fact, the city’s leading modern dance troupe had no plans to dance on home turf until next January.

The most exciting contribution from the Three’s Company camp promises to be Isaacs’ “Red Dress, White Dress,” which features a pair of solos never performed in San Diego. Featuring Terry Wilson and Faith Jensen-Ismay, the dance made its debut during the troupe’s recent

Switzerland tour, and Isaacs believes it reflects her foreign experience.

“We’re pleased it worked out this way,” she said in a break from rehearsals, “because we want to show what we’re doing. I choreographed the piece in Europe to the German expressionist music of Kurt Weill, and it’s very affected by my being in Europe.”

A reprise of Nancy McCaleb’s twosome, “Aelia Laelia Crispis,” with Kim Chidley and Denise Dabrowski doing the dancing, is also on the bill.

In sharp contrast to the two offerings by Three’s Company, the flip side of the concert-- Turner’s “Choices”--pits a pair of actors (Rick Meads and Veronica Murphy-Smith) against dancers Tonnie Haig and Greg Adams.

“That’s the challenge I put before myself,” said Turner. The San Diego dance maker moves freely between the world of theater (she’s resident choreographer for the Lamb’s Players) and concert dance. This work combines the two sides of her dance persona.

“I find it intriguing to mix the two mediums and somehow get a cohesive blend that doesn’t make either one incomplete. I enjoy working with actors and dancers They surprise me.”

By coincidence, Turner’s theater designs for “The Wind in the Willows” will be playing concurrently at the Lamb’s National City playhouse, while Turner’s modern dance drama plays out in the Hillcrest studio.

But as the dance maker acknowledged, creating concert dance is still a “driving need, and I feel privileged that my work is good enough to team up with Three’s Company’s.”