Aman Ensemble, Laura Dean to Collaborate

Los Angeles-based Aman Folk Ensemble will work in modern dance for the first time beginning this spring, collaborating with New York composer-choreographer Laura Dean under the auspices of a new national dance fund.

The 24-month project, which will eventually enter Aman’s repertory, will be funded by Philip Morris, the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund and the National Endowment for the Arts. A total of eight American dance companies, none besides Aman from the West Coast, were announced to receive $315,000 in collaboration grants.

Aman’s share is approximately $65,000, according to Timothy Ney, newly appointed managing director of the company.

Dean, who directs a New York-based company, will first co-write the score for her project with Aman music director John Zeretzke, Ney said.

Beginning this spring, she will begin observing the Aman dancers and start working in their movement vocabulary, eventually setting and rehearsing the new work. Dean is also designing costumes for the work. No premiere date has been scheduled, Ney said.

The idea for the collaboration came up, Ney said, after Aman artistic director Barry Glass met Dean when they both served on dance panels. Glass said he made the suggestion three years ago and eventually Dean accepted.

“I have seen in her work a lot of the same kind of elements as traditional dance,” Glass said. “What interested me was the prospect of exploration . . . some sort of fusion. I think the unknown here is perhaps the most exciting thing about it.”

Pentacle, an organization that administers projects serving the performing arts, said the grants (called the National Dance Repertory Enrichment Program) will total $1 million over the next three years.

Besides Aman and Dean, many of the other companies and artists to be funded are familiar to local audiences. They include:

* Ballet Hispanico of New York, for a commissioned work by William Forsythe, the American-born director of the Frankfurt Ballet.

* Maria Benitez Spanish Dance Company of Santa Fe., N.M., for a commissioned flamenco work by Ciro of Madrid.

* Boston Ballet, for a commissioned work based on the Jewish klezmer tradition by Bill T. Jones of New York.

* Dayton Contemporary Dance Company of Ohio, to acquire “Come and Get the Beauty of It Hot,” a 1960 dance suite by Talley Beatty of New York.

* Creach-Koester of New York for a work, set to 16th-Century music, by Peter Anastos, artistic director of the Garden State Ballet in New Jersey.

* New York Baroque Dance Company for a dance suite in Spanish Baroque style by Alan Tjaarda Jones.

* Pennsylvania Ballet of Philadelphia, for a work meant to stretch the limits of ballet by Doug Elkins.