MUSIC AND DANCE : 91 YEAR IN REVIEW : In Dance, a Year of Highs and Ominous Trends

For Southern California dance, 1991 turned out to be a year of cancellations. American Ballet Theatre called off two scheduled Southland engagements. So did the Byelorussian Ballet from the new post-Soviet capital of Minsk.

Other dropouts included flamenco luminary Maria Benitez and Japanese National Living Treasure Fujima Fujiko, but possibly the most ruinous cancellation looms just ahead: the end of the Dance Gallery’s long-delayed hopes to build a facility on Bunker Hill--unless a $5-million donation can be found. An announced “drop-dead” deadline of Dec. 31 has been extended to Jan. 17. Stay tuned.

In the local dance community, the most ominous trend may have been new funding priorities of the Los Angeles City Department of Cultural Affairs that encourage dancers and choreographers to behave like social workers.

Three years ago, the creation of the Los Angeles Endowment for the Arts left people hoping that a young Alvin Ailey (who started here) wouldn’t have to go east to find support for creating a repertory or building a company.

Forget it. The new reality: An Ailey or a Donald Byrd could prosper as a Cultural Affairs grantee only if he wanted to spend a lot of time doing workshops for latchkey children, the homeless or other such “underserved audiences.”

Some local dance-makers have demonstrated a genuine interest in such worthy, welfare-oriented projects. However, making this kind of agenda into funding policy effectively denies other kinds of excellence and innovation access to the endowment.

Here is a survey of memorable occasions from one aficionado’s notebook:

Modern Dance

Unusual projects by familiar companies reached Southern California throughout the year, though two of the most conceptually ambitious proved distressingly slim on dance invention: Bill T. Jones’ “Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land” (at UCLA in March) and Urban Bush Women’s “Praise House” (at the Wadsworth Theatre in October).

Notwithstanding his hopeful final section, Garth Fagan unleashed an unsparing lament for contemporary America in “Until By & If” (at El Camino College in January). Kei Takei summarized her innovative “Light” series with an all-night, partly outdoor marathon (at UCLA in April).

Hubbard St. Dance Company simultaneously upgraded its repertory and served dance history by acquiring modern-dance masterworks by Twyla Tharp (presented at several Southern California colleges in January and February). And Judson Church veteran Deborah Hay danced “The Man Who Grew Common in Wisdom” with uncanny, subliminal sensitivity (at Highways in October).

Two of the year’s indispensable experiences came courtesy of the “Black Choreographers Moving Toward the 21st Century” festival (April): David Rousseve’s visionary “Had Me Somebody but I Lost Her Very Young” (on the plaza and balconies of the Bradbury Building) and Bebe Miller’s volcanic “Hendrix Project” (at the Wadsworth).

Both these free-form showpieces repaid a debt to the past, as did the year’s most challenging import: Wim Vandekeybus’ Ultima Vez company from Belgium in “Always the Same Lies” (at Occidental College in October). And the California E.A.R. Unit pulled off a disarming coup by introducing Doug Elkins’ unpredictable technical and conceptual ingenuity (at LACMA in May).

The Hot Ticket for 1991: Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project in a half-century cavalcade of modern dance (at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in October).

The Music Center had never presented any choreography by Martha Graham until Baryshnikov danced “El Penitente,” so much of the program proved remedial: catch-up time for a cultural institution that had managed to program only 10 performances of modern dance in its entire history.

Ballet

New sets and costumes for a familiar, inane staging of “Coppelia” represented the big novelty of the annual visit by American Ballet Theatre to the Orange County Performing Arts Center (March). However, Julio Bocca’s high-voltage authority in “La Bayadere” and Alessandra Ferri’s emotional power in “Fall River Legend” provided unforgettable evidence of what this company can deliver on increasingly rare occasions.

The final Joffrey Ballet season as a resident company of the Los Angeles Music Center (May) yielded new examples of the company’s creative risk-taking--as well as consistently artful performances by Tina LeBlanc, Valerie Madonia and (underused this season) Peter Narbutas.

The Royal Ballet engagement (at OCPAC in August) introduced local audiences to the eloquent, majestic classicism of Darcey Bussell, though the British company itself remained arguably outclassed by an ensemble created in its image: National Ballet of Canada (also seen in Costa Mesa, two months later).

Dancing unworthy choreography with local troupes, several stellar dancers managed to deliver indelible performances--especially Soviet guest Vladimir Malakhov (at the Long Beach Terrace Theater in June) and American free-lancer Christopher Aponte (at the Embassy Theatre in September).

World Dance

The three best-known international ensembles all visited Southern California in 1991: Ballet Folklorico de Mexico (at Shrine Auditorium in September), the Moiseyev Dance Company (at the Pantages Theatre in November) and Les Ballets Africains (at several Southland venues the same month).

In an example of site-specific aesthetics, the Guinea women who danced topless in Irvine covered up in Pasadena--at the request of that engagement’s sponsors, the Ambassador Foundation.

For collectors of performance rarities, Festival of Indonesia showcased masked dancers from West Java at Caltech (January), Central Javanese shadow puppetry at UCLA (July) plus music and dance from North Sumatra at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre (November).

Two of the year’s most memorable world dance events occurred in June, with Kathak master Birju Maharaj embodying both the soul and brilliance of Indian classicism (at La Mirada Civic Theater). In the same week, the social satire in Korean folk tradition emerged with maximum boldness in a performance by the Pongsan Masked Dance Drama (at the Ebell).

Close to Home

Rudy Perez returned to performing with “Made in L.A.” (at LACE in February), reminding us how the simplest actions can hold the deepest resonance. And John Malashock confirmed his increasing prominence on the West Coast modern dance scene with two daring new works (at the San Diego Museum of Art in May).

Bella Lewitzky survived a pointless collaboration with clarinetist Richard Stoltzman (at UCLA in February) to launch her company’s 25th-anniversary season in two impressive retrospective programs (one at Pepperdine University in August, the other at the Japan America Theater a month later).

Former Lewitzky stalwart Loretta Livingston achieved a career milestone with her first full-evening work: “A Window in the Passage” (at the JAT in January).

Opening with world dance, the annual “Dance Kaleidoscope” series (at Cal State L.A. in July) grew positively world-class when flamenco soloist Yaelisa danced.

The three-program, two-weekend event also presented a demonstration of choreographer Shel Wagner’s growing mastery, as well as glimpses of two ballet companies making bids for new prominence in 1991: Los Angeles Chamber Ballet (which celebrated its 10th anniversary) and Long Beach Ballet (now renamed Los Angeles Classical Ballet).

Finally, Avaz International Dance Theatre endured daunting economic and even political crises to achieve a new level of distinction in its subtly daring, masterly annual program (at the Ebell in June).