DANCE REVIEW : A Grab-Bag Bill at LACE

Until you know that the Umbrella Forest Dancers belong to a genus of trendy Los Angeles performance art, the name may suggest something aboriginal in nature.

But it took only moments Thursday at LACE to grasp the identity of this four-member ensemble, presented as part of the annual “Twisted Spring” series--even without a program note describing work that “deals with emotional and psychological issues relevant to life in the postmodern, post-nuclear age.”

Dancer-choreographer Katherine LaNasa, chief creative spirit here, sets down her aesthetic clearly in a suite of image fragments called “After Frank,” the reference presumably being to writer Frank O’Hara.

From top to toe the perfect cover girl, LaNasa not only goes in for a type of poetic nudity, she also calls upon considerable ballet mastery, as does the beauteous Deborah Collodel (aptly identified as Company Goddess) while the men, Eric Rochin as a danseur noble type and Craig Raclauski as a caractere , complement them in a range of dance from neo-expressionist modern to Broadway.

Amid her voiceover narratives on love, death and other eternal verities there are comic, jazzy impulses as well, all of them expertly drawn, especially Collodel’s chambermaid strip-tease to Mary Poppins’ “Spoonful of Sugar.”

The wrappings, very L.A. and very chic, come in satin lingerie worn as outerwear. But for something less narcissistic on this shared bill one looked to Leo Tee’s “Formal Request,” a solo that probed the dancer’s self-flagellating, darkly obsessive world in terms both economic and intense.

Closing the event was West African Malang Bayo whose elaborately complex drumming amazed with its strength, precision and rhythmic force. Too bad he turned the opportunity into a sing-and-clap-along.