Dance Reviews : Rootless Expertise From Laura Olson

Although six pieces by Laura Olson appeared Friday on the final program of the UCLA “Upstarts” series in Schoenberg Hall, nobody would ever use the word upstart to describe this California-born specialist in gymnastics and dance-for-children.

Indeed, instead of defying the modern-dance status quo, Olson buys into it with slick knockoffs of familiar styles. You like breezy all-American athleticism juxtaposed to Baroque music a la Paul Taylor and his imitators? Try Olson’s “Underwhere,” in which seven characters defined by costuming eventually strip to basics and discover an uninhibited camaraderie.

You prefer whimsical blacklight spectacle in the Alwin Nikolais mode? Check out “Sideshow” (co-choreographed by Valerie Zimring) in which lush music accompanies the playful transformations of a long, flexible florescent rope.

So it goes: mild socio-sexual satire in “Maxwell House,” tepid formal abstraction in “Jigsaw,” with Olson’s inventive lifts and other gymnastic gambits providing the program’s major movement invention. “Sevit-ceps-rep” even incorporates a traveling trapeze bar that Olson and Sara Mishler climb on and hang from.

These pieces all prove precocious and accessible, neatly crafted as far as they go but far less distinctive than the Olson drawings of dancers that decorate the program booklet. Only the feral, twisty solo “Incubus” risks a deep, sustained exploration of ideas, and its success may be substantially due to the power and versatility of dancer Winnie Ladd.

Presented under the umbrella title “Not Available in Stores,” Olson’s evening of etudes introduces a clever, well-schooled choreographer who largely ignores the world beyond her studio or the possibilities for making an indelible statement. Before it’s too late, the lady ought to consider an internship at Highways--or a sabbatical in Soweto.