Dance and Music Reviews : Greco Company at Irvine Barclay

In its only current Southern California appearance, the Jose Greco Spanish Dance Company made a mixed impression when it opened a three-day run Thursday at the Irvine Barclay Theatre.

The 11-member troupe replaced the originally scheduled Maria Benitez Spanish Dance Company, which withdrew from the dates because Benitez had suffered a “temporary physical impairment,” according to her manager.

Contrary to information that the Irvine theater had provided to the press beforehand, the only Greco sibling to appear on the program was Jose II, the 29-year-old son of the 72-year-old patriarch, who danced twice.

A spokesman for the theater, which had announced three daughters as well, had no immediate explanation for the difference.

A dashing, long-limbed figure, Jose II danced with arresting presence and intensity. His specialty, perhaps overused, appeared to be multiple turns, usually ending with a drop to one knee and sometimes embellished, perhaps with a hopping jump of one leg over another. Fortunately, in his farruca, he also demonstrated strong, sustained and eminently light footwork.

In “Amor Gitano,” a highly theatricalized duet verging dangerously close to parody, he and the willowy Pilar Serrano exchanged overwrought glances, stamped out short messages of mutual need and rejection, and wheeled into dramatic poses, always on the beat. The choreography was by him and sister Carmela.

The elder Greco appeared in a moody, dreamy sequence (“Recuerdos”) that was for him essentially all turns and arm gestures, with Serrano, Marisol Figeroa and La Chispa drifting in and out to suggest perhaps his muses, wives or temptations, briefly enjoyed but inevitably lost. He offered more fleet footwork in a brief appearance in the final group piece, “Rincon Flamenco.”

There may have been a time that Spanish culture was so little known or appreciated in this country that a case had to be made for it through such cutesy character vignettes as in “Three Folk Dances” choreographed by Greco and the legendary La Argentinita.

Today, however, these prettified, mugging peasants, dancing to lush orchestral arrangements, suggest the vitality of regional dances only in the most general terms.

In “Por Bulerias,” La Tormento stamped out serious, sturdy rhythms, her long hair flying; Miguel Cara Estaca, her husband, responded with pile-driver rhythms and fancy side-slip footwork.

The playful, sleek Gitanillo and the blocky Jaime Coronado completed the roster of dancers.