DANCE REVIEW : ‘Body Tjak’ at Wadsworth

Out of the factious, alienated ‘80s, a longing for community is fueling a resurgence of tribal art in America. From such small, experimental performing collectives as San Francisco’s Contraband and our own Open Gate Theatre on through the Hollywood epic “Dances With Wolves,” we see the accommodating extended family presented as a social model.

“Body Tjak” accepts the premise and offers its own paradigm. Seen at the Wadsworth Theater on Saturday, the project enlists two dozen performers--half of them Balinese, half American--in an attempt at cultural synthesis.

From American percussionist Keith Terry they learned Body Music: methods of slapping, stamping, clapping and vocalizing common to many world cultures. With Balinese choreographer I Wayan Dibia they practiced Kecak, an intricate, often guttural sacred chant increasingly secularized and hybridized in Bali since the 1930s.

As long as “Body Tjak” remained focused on alternating and then combining Body Music and Kecak, the evening had great mastery to recommend it, along with rhythmic innovation galore. Besides high-energy displays of interlocking body percussion, singing and chant, the ensemble made music on newly developed metallic instruments capable of both Balinese and Western tunings, along with delicate, soothing bamboo.

Unfortunately, the dance component of “Body Tjak” proved nowhere near this distinguished.

The intense physicality of Body Music makes a dancelike statement in itself, but became dulled here by the flat-footed boogie processions led by Terry. Except during the slowest, simplest music, the U.S. contingent evaded the challenge of dancing to the new Bali-American rhythms. Brief displays of tap, ballet, juggling and lambada served as an index of possibilities but led nowhere.

Dibia and the Balinese came closer, borrowing potent movement ideas (most of them gestural) from their traditional culture. But dance still seemed an afterthought--as did the masks, puppets and philosophical baggage of the production.

Indeed, the giant effigies who bleated in two languages about “new world transition” (“seek justice, build bridges”) brought the whole experience close to self-parody.

In a lecture after the performance, Terry defended the smug, simplistic references to war, racism, sexism, religious intolerance and class strife, saying that these were issues he wanted to address, and citing the moral commentary in traditional Balinese dance dramas.

Of course, “Body Tjak” never began to address those issues but merely scattered greeting-card homilies--while traditional Balinese dance drama belongs to a continuum of moral art utterly different from Terry and Dibia’s diversionary showpiece.

No, the most profound statement made by “Body Tjak” is the company itself: pan-cultural, multiracial, full of distinctive individuals yet unified in style, purpose and spirit. The members are talented, versatile, beautiful in many different ways--and we don’t need to see them in their unfortunate, ‘60s-style tie-dyes to understand the message of their solidarity.