Dance : Kei Takei Puts ‘Light’ on UCLA

From 5:30 p.m. Saturday until past 6:30 the next morning, choreographer Kei Takei and her Moving Earth company danced excerpts from her 30-part “Light” series in and around Schoenberg Hall, UCLA.

Billed as “14 Hours of Light,” the event represented a down-payment on a 24-hour Takei marathon due at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis June 1. This was not a chronological retrospective--”Light, Part 30” (a work in progress) came five hours before Part 1 (1969)--but it did clarify and even update Takei’s enduring contributions to the avant-garde.

Takei is best known for her obsession with process and repetition: for instance, “Light, Part 6,” a 1974 solo about tying small strips of fabric on her naked body, one by one, until she’s so constricted and overloaded she can’t stand up.

No choreographer ever found more cruel irony in task-based work, though Takei often proved a master of metaphor. In “Part 16” (1983), the giant white radishes deployed relentlessly in row after row could well be tombstones. Or missiles. Or syringes.

In 1991, however, Abstract Expressionism seems less the issue than a facet of Takei’s art previously overlooked or taken for granted: her imaginative adaptation of cultural traditions from her native Japan.

In “Part 12” (1976), the company uses rocks for percussion accompaniment as they arrange piles of stones in circles and paths across the stage. Originally, the folk elements in this piece seemed misplaced or, at best, ironic from an artist obviously seeking to make a universal statement. Now, however, they seem a frank acknowledgement of multicultural resources.

The Saturday event began outdoors across from Royce Hall with “Light, Part 23,” (1986-87), a piece using both Takei’s six-dancer company and 16 UCLA dance students. After a dinner break, the company appeared in a formal program (three solos, two group pieces) in Schoenberg Hall. From 11 through the next morning, Dickson Plaza (outside Schoenberg) held eight more pieces of “Light,” interrupted by a movement workshop in the Schoenberg lobby and a slow-motion group walk back near Royce.

The workshop turned out to be a preview of “Light, Part V” (1971), a minimalist drama, danced at dawn, in which the vinelike Takei kept winding herself around--and eventually toppling--an oaklike gymnastic duo. Due to high winds, a scheduled bonfire diversion was cancelled. “Light, Part 28” was also dumped.

Management’s explanation, at 4:30 a.m.: “Kei’s a little bit tired.” How come?