DANCE REVIEW : 3’s Company Proves Solid but Not Fancy

Never getting nicked by the cutting edge is both a blessing anda curse for 3’s Company.

The San Diego dance company opened a four-day engagement at the Mandell Weiss Center for the Performing Arts on Thursday, presenting six works by artistic directors Jean Isaacs and Nancy McCaleb.

These two choreographers avoid innovations that sometimes spark, sometimes sputter in contemporary dance. No zowie virtuoso flourishes intended to “reveal” the athlete inside the dancer. No clever visual tricks enhancing dance with theatricality. No new takes on the ol’ story dance, with the story now thoroughly inscrutable.

The work of each is straightforward, consistent, all of a mind. Though revolutionary flashes of brilliance are lacking, as are exciting idiosyncratic touches, what is present is thoughtful, generally solid and well-constructed.

The curse is that both Isaacs’ and McCaleb’s ideas have not been shaved of dance cliches. The worst offender in Thursday’s program was the opening bit of dance Americana. Isaacs’ “Hoedown at the Boneyard” (1990) has a tough-stuff, urban teen gang of six, decked in black leather and feisty colors, fisting, hugging, reaching, rejecting, clinging, slinging and swinging their partners to the sounds of driving sitar music. Their internal dynamics are a vulnerable mess, but their external posture--Yo! Unity in confrontation. This amusing hoedown will be the same in another 200 years, Isaacs is saying--new trappings, same hormonal hash.

Dance conventions surfaced, too, in the closing “Torch,” McCaleb’s premiere for the program. The delirium of dance marathons is couples with the desperation of a Sadie Hawkins Day chase. Everyone is carried by the momentum of the romantic pursuit, but no one really wants to be. Everyone’s tired of going in circles, but no one wants to lose. The fatigue and futility expressed in the dance are adroitly opposed in Michael Nyman’s score, in which the driving pulse of Bach fires the engine of minimalist repetition.

Two of the dancers might well have been exhausted during this dance. Both Terry Wilson and Faith Jensen-Ismay had performed in every dance of the program, except one, a solo work performed by Eric Geiger. They held their strength and technical ability to the end, a testimony to the quality of dancing in this company. These two performed Isaac’s recent work “Red Dress/White Dress” (1990), an elegant pair of solos danced to songs of Kurt Weill.

Geiger danced “Illuminatus,” a solo created by McCaleb in 1985 (then called “Illuminata”). Ironically, this, the oldest work on the program, was the freshest, the strongest for its simplicity. What is revealed and illuminated is the essence of dance itself--bones and muscles and their sculptural flex, and the emotive power of naked movement devoid of props. Further, the relationship between dance and music is apparent in the rhythmic pacing of the moves against the steady 4/4 structure of the music (by Xolotle). Geiger’s fine performance revealed, too, a highly skilled and aesthetically attuned dancer.

A work much darker but no less clear was McCaleb’s “Mirror of Simple Souls.” Program notes explained a connection to Marguerite Porete, a 14th-Century mystic executed for asserting “the primacy of love over theology.” The striking backdrop projections, adding to the tone of despair, were not credited; the commissioned score was by David Stout, with vocals by Julie West. McCaleb’s work, overall, possesses a signature humanism; here it was in its glory.

Isaac’s premiere work on the program featured the full company (Bruno Bosardi, Kim Chidley, Spencer Nichols, Stacy Scardino, Gail Olson, Geiger, Wilson and Jensen-Ismay) in a New Age ritual titled “Canopy.” Forest setting, spiritual overtones, ecology-minded--all recalling Martha Graham. The work’s strengths were aural rather than visual: birdlike whooshes from overhead propelled the dancers; pebble-filled bamboo tubes imitating sounds of rushing water accompanied an ancient circle dance.

One is more likely to be satisfied than inspired by the six works presented by 3’s Company. Those who have followed this company since its beginning in 1974 might even feel a sense of pride. This is the little company that could; it has evolved with depth and a certain solidity; and its audience has grown as well. Thursday’s performance was well-attended, a receptive crowd that has expanded beyond core dance fans to a broader public.

3’s Company: Isaacs, McCaleb & Dancers will perform at 8 p.m. tonight and Sunday at Mandell Weiss Center for the Performing Arts on UC San Diego campus.