DANCE REVIEW : Al Germani Troupe Flails About in Search of Identity

Al Germani is a choreographer in progress. He hasn’t quite settled on a style or movement language to call his own, but he seems intent on presenting dances anyway. Friday and Saturday, his handful of dancers, the Al Germani Dance Company, performed three works at San Diego State University’s Studio Theater.

“Flicks It Is. . .” was the title of the opening dance. Happy-slappy moves matched the syncopated rhythms of Michael Torke’s Broadway-style music, but the 10-minute dance relied on cute gestures to break its monotony. Dancers Tina Buerkle, Marni Respicio, Jesse Bie and Maren Norell flicked wrists and twirled arms; one smacked a big kiss on another’s forehead; and, in unison, the four palm-smacked their heads and said a four-letter word.

Germani favored upper-body moves in this dance. Such emphasis adds superficial, readable cues for the audience, but it can also signify a choreographer’s need to “decorate” from the outside, because full-body kinesthetic inspiration, from the inside, is lacking.

Technically, Germani’s dancers nearly measured up to the jazz dance energy and precision “Flicks” called for, but the piece didn’t measure up to much anyway. Nonetheless, if Germani has a penchant for the glossy, upbeat Americana showed in “Flicks,” he should pursue it, hone it and forget the “expressionistic” investigations he displayed in the rest of the program. Of the evening’s three selections, “Flicks” had greater unity and fewer glaring dead-action spots, and was the least pretentious. Despite its irritating sprinklings of coyness, it managed to project a love-to-dance sincerity that gave it purpose.

When he premiered his company in 1989, Germani called it a postmodern contemporary jazz dance troupe. The designation had a neophyte’s uncertainty. Intervening months haven’t gained him clarity. His work is scattershot derivative, lacking both freshness and a character of its own. But derivation alone is no flaw--Picasso was a master of it--it is common to art and can be a launching point for new ideas. In Germani’s case, he seems to be hoping to hit on his own artistic voice by trying out everyone else’s all at once.

Further, he appears to be setting his dances on the talents of Marni Respicio, the most fluid dancer of the troupe. Her sensitivity, however, seems mirror-flat. Self-reflective, self-conscious, her face is her vehicle for emotional display, and she overacts to distraction.

In “Kill,” a work in progress, Respicio holds a big black gun in her red-gloved hand. She drops it. Clunk. Picks it up, has a melodramatic inner struggle, drops the gun again. Meant to be sinister, the reluctant love duet with the gun comes off as some kind of comical hara-kiri ritual. A second segment of “Kill” breaks the silence and uses a booming electronic score for impact. Respicio now has a reluctant exchange with a human partner instead of a gun. Movement is sacrificed to slow moving “dark emotion” in this exercise, and the result is boring.

“ISO,” which was performed at Sushi last October as a work in progress with 11 dancers, had its premiere Friday at SDSU carved down to five dancers. Set to excerpts from a live concert by Keith Jarrett, the dance conservatively addresses a well-worn contemporary dance theme--relationships. The couple, the triad, the isolated loner against the group, the love, the violence, the agony of rejection and so on are taken from humanity’s catalogue of angst -ridden social imperatives.

Of interest in this work was Germani’s decision, unsuccessful though it was, to incorporate limited vocals. Sighed words, sung words and exhalations, used to underscore exertion, are uttered by the dancers. The words, yes, no, never, among a few others, have no referent; as with the exhalations, they are ornamental. (The serious tone of the “ISO,” short for isolation, makes it doubtful that the dancer’s words were meant to reflect Jarrett’s amusing vocabulary of moans that has become part of his piano playing.)

Marni Respicio’s “mad scene” cadenza ended the piece. Kneeling, separate from the others--one singing, two walking in slow motion, with a forlorn figure in the background, Respicio flailed her arms and flattened her face to the floor.

Tina Buerkle’s spunk was appreciated, but her comparative size and energy weren’t well-matched when partnered by other dancers. Bie and Tony Salamat showed vitality in their 30-second duet near the end of the dance, but mostly they were shadowy partners for the others.