San Diego Gains Luster as a Dance Center : Dance: An ex-Twyla Tharp performer has made a go of it with his troupe, the Malashock Dance and Company, and now two dancers from world-class companies will debut at the Lyceum for the troupe’s season-opener.

John Malashock had a dream when he gave up on New York as a hub of dance activity and moved to his native San Diego in 1984.

The ex-Twyla Tharp dancer was convinced he could muster support on the home front for a modern dance company forged in his own image. He was just as certain he could lure other big-league dancers to San Diego, despite the city’s poor track record for nurturing local dance.

New York “is not even where the experimental work is going on now,” Malashock said. “It’s all happening in the regional companies. People have started to get out of New York.”

Now, just two years after he launched the chamber-sized troupe known as Malashock Dance and Company (with just a few home-grown female dancers and Malashock as the only male), the determined dreamer has already seen much of his artistic vision come into focus.

When the Malashock troupe performs its season-opener at the Lyceum Theatre this weekend, the concert will mark the company debut of Carol Mead and Greg Lane. Both newcomers--like their boss--have come to San Diego after successful stints with world-class dance companies.

Mead had no ties to San Diego when she and her husband, ex-Martha Graham dancer Julian Littleford, abandoned the New York dance scene last summer. But she had heard good things about Malashock from respected people throughout the country.

“I worked in New York since I was 17,” said the 28-year-old dancer. “I worked with all the people I wanted to work with--Martha Graham, Murray Louis, Alwin Nikolais. But all the heavy-hitters are getting older now. And look at Mark Morris, one of the brightest stars. He left the country.

“New York has been a big dance center, but it’s not the be-all and end-all of the dance world any more,” said the sleek, long-limbed dancer. “It’s too chaotic. I wanted to continue dancing, and I like John’s work.

“John’s is absolutely some of the finest choreography outside of New York, and (this company) stacks up just as well as anybody.”

Lane is a 27-year-old San Diego native who left his home to further his career but came back to dance with Malashock.

“I never thought I’d be able to come back,” he said. “I danced with Bella Lewitzky (the leading West Coast dance company) for six years. But now, at the prime of my career, I’m home.

“I absolutely believe I can have a career here. People working in the big cities like New York and Los Angeles are suffocating. They’re trying to find different places to work. I won’t go to New York unless we go there as a company.”

That opportunity may be near, according to the troupe leader.

“We’d like to get a New York tour by 1991-92,” Malashock said. “I’m already laying the groundwork. We’ve done touring in San Francisco, Seattle, and Los Angeles, and it’s time to get the company up to New York. It’s still important to get there because it’s where the largest portion of the dance machine exists--the best known critics.”

Malashock Dance has gained momentum with space age speed, increasing its annual budget from $25,000 two years ago, to $120,000 in 1990.

Its West Coast appearances have garnered rave reviews for a gut-wrenching style of contemporary dance that Lewis Segal of The Times described as “dancing of the deepest, rawest emotion, dancing in which Malashock’s cast and audience are swept into the same vortex.”

Allan Ulrich of the San Francisco Examiner was no less glowing in his praise of the 36-year-old dancer-choreographer and his well-trained troupe. “Even in its infancy, it looks like one of the brightest additions to the California modern dance scene in several years.”

Malashock Dance and Company’s season-opener, aptly called “Flames to Names,” will include three Malashock dances. “Up in Flames” and “Stan’s Retreat” are both of recent vintage (“Retreat” premiered in April). The centerpiece, a premiere titled “Unfortunate Names,” dances to a new Brazilian beat, and represents a bit of a departure for its designer.

“I’m going more quirky,” Malashock said. “My dances are usually characterized as intense, serious. But there’s two sides of a coin (in ‘Names’). There’s character development. That’s where my interest is. I’m going deeper into the character’s dimensions to pursue personality. Gesture is so much a part of personality, I’m using more gestural movement here--but not literal gestures.”

The new dance--a series of short stories with O’Henry-like plot twists--exudes emotion, a Malashock trademark. It also takes the dancers to the brink with pretzel-shaped contortions, deep, boneless backbends and dangerous lifts, all requiring gymnastic strength, agility, and split-second timing, in addition to a well-honed modern dance technique.

“There are no wimps around here,” Malashock said with a smile, as he watched Lane guide his partner through a precarious mid-air maneuver.

Although Malashock was something of a maverick when he decided to set up shop as a dance maker in San Diego, he is now part of a trend.

“Doing serious work has gotten prohibitive in New York. The exodus started with theater, and now we’re seeing it in dance. Rents for apartments are outrageous, let alone the rent on a rehearsal space, and the atmosphere is very bad there. All my friends in New York are confirming that.”

Dancers “see that even the major companies are having trouble,” Malashock said. Martha Graham, Alvin Ailey have financial woes--”and Twyla actually disbanded the company. You take those carrots away (the chance to work with world-class artists), and why stay there?

“San Diego always had the reputation as being a place where professionals wouldn’t stay,” said Malashock. “But now we have a couple of dance companies paying on a salary basis, and there’s lots of activity.”