Music, Dance Reviews : Fang’s ‘In Dark Places’ at Schoenberg Hall

A man screams at a young couple to come together, embrace, separate--and they fearfully obey. Is he merely their choreographer? Big Brother, perhaps? Or could he be the personification of their self-doubt?

Such questions linger after Qing Fang’s “In Dark Places,” an unusual dance-drama introduced Friday at Schoenberg Hall on the UCLA Dance Department’s new “Upstarts” series.

Certainly, the work’s political implications become stronger once you learn that the choreographer graduated from the Beijing Dance Academy. Suddenly, all those frenzied group jumps against and off the back wall express more than a generalized modern desperation. Suddenly, the gleaming, slowly turning woman in white who towers above a scene of group anarchy becomes the goddess of Tian An Men Square.

However, Fang’s work still serves as an indictment of all tyranny, especially in its brilliant final confrontation. Where earlier duets in the hourlong piece explored a formal, neo-minimalist style--with rigid limitations on spatial patterns and vocabulary--this last battle between authority and individualism plays as mime-based movement-theater.

Relying on relentless logic, impressive stamina and grim humor, Fang makes herself and Daniel Millner the embodiments of a heroic, terrified defiance by the oppressed--and the power structure’s demented and corrupt response. Text-rhythms and the use of props help define the conflict, and there’s an inspired moment when Millner demands Fang’s name and she answers by beginning to dance.

Performed by a disciplined, 10-member company, “In Dark Places” clearly proves stronger in thematic and theatrical interest than in pure-movement invention or development. But its best moments cannot be dismissed as merely “promising.” They are expressions of experience and feeling as authentic as any being created on local stages.

“Upstarts” resumes Friday with a program by Nola Rocco.