DANCE REVIEW : Fancy Footwork by Moiseyev Troupe

Onstage at the Pantages Theatre, dozens of dancers surge from both left and right through one another’s formations into groupings that instantly dissolve when they reach the opposite side. It looks like a masterful shuffle of cards, with everyone at first dancing in lines, next as couples, and then in a giant circle--with time off while two whirling women and an obsessively footloose man allow you to refocus your eyes.

The Pantages program Tuesday called this a Moldavian zhok , but the blur of high-velocity, rigorously geometric crisscrossings and circlings marked the moment as classic Moiseyev--just like the man leaping over a line of women in the Ukrainian hopak or the cloaked corps gliding magically across the stage in “Partisans.”

At 85, Igor Moiseyev still puts on quite a show, and his much-beloved ensemble looks better on this eighth American tour than it did on the sixth or seventh. Moreover, the company repertory now represents a kind of nostalgic memorial to what used to be the U.S.S.R., with dances from a number of defecting republics serving as the principal novelties or highlights on the program.

The oddest and newest of three American premieres, however, comes from Greece: a 10-month-old suite of village line-dances to music by Mikis Theodorakis. Moiseyev captures the steps well enough--especially in the passages of twisty, gymnastic display. However, the style eludes him: The solidity and pride of Greek men softens to balletic elegance, the footwork lightens and the unmistakable Russian back that some American ballet students would die for further distorts the dancing of his ballet-trained company. Where’s Zorba when you really need him?

Also new to American audiences, “Masks” dates back to 1947 and shows it, carefully reproducing artifacts of Mongolian folklore but making many, many concessions to the Russian theatrical taste of that era. Starting with a kitsch score (Orientalism a la Rimsky), it mines an ancient legend for maximum exoticism, with the masks getting larger and more fearsome until production values alone create an imposing spectacle.

Midway through, there’s an athletic sword fight between six demons and a white knight (Sergei Anikin) that seems clearly influenced by the Peking Opera. (Even the music dips into chinoiserie at this point.) But perhaps the most memorable sequence involves 16 figures in women’s masks and floor-length paneled robes who enter upstage and form a line. Standing hand-to-hand, they suddenly turn around, instantly transforming themselves into red-faced devils through the surprise of double-sided masks.

Far more modest, the Crimean trio “Tatarotchka” gives Marina Taranda extraordinarily fast and difficult steps (including turning jumps in place with her boots held together), as well as flirtatious byplay with Valery Inozemtsev and Igor Goryachkin. Choreographed in 1939 (two years after the Moiseyev Dance Company was founded), it provides one of the few exceptions to the prevailing emphasis upon male virtuosity.

The familiar opening “Road to Dance” suite offers a potent sample of that virtuosity--and also an analysis of its components--packaged as a simulation of company class. Standing at portable barres, these long-limbed, T-shirted males flex and point their feet with equal ease while the women prove no less versatile.

As the suite builds inevitably to the men’s solo stunts, we see how Moiseyev adapts and combines folk and classical traditions, with some of the most exciting technical innovations (the inventive split jumps, for instance, and one woman’s incredible traveling fouettes ) somehow belonging to both idioms--or to a new one entirely.

There are squat-kicks galore and barrels of barrel turns (including doubles), of course. But possibly the most unique and subtle demonstration of male prowess occurs in “Kalmuk Dance,” in which Andrei Evlanov, Igor Goryachkin and Andrei Timofeyev wear loose tunics of black satin that look like wings whenever the dancers stretch their arms out and shake their shoulders or fingers.

Rhythmically powerful and rich in images, this vintage trio also exudes a sense of mystery. Moiseyev seldom allows a dance to keep its secrets but when he does the result can be more memorable than platoons of careening Cossacks.

* At the Pantages through Nov. 16.