Dance and Music Reviews : Goodman and Friends at Japan America

Deciphering political correctness is no easy matter these days. Ask Karen Goodman, who, along with several noted colleagues, danced her choreography Thursday at the Japan America Theatre. Besides that, she tells us, hypocrisy often rears its ugly head in the process.

All of this gets revealed in the program’s single new solo, “Thirteen Levels of Desire.”

But after Goodman cleverly segues into the specific message by projecting the text of her mildly sardonic biography on screen and asking the audience to read it aloud, the confusing issues sort themselves out.

Just who is Karen Goodman, from a grant committee’s point of view, for instance? A second-generation American practicing a Eurocentric art and thus an unworthy recipient?

Or would it be fair to characterize the dark-haired woman with Yiddish-speaking parents as “Semitic”? Does code count more than substance?

No matter how amusing the device, it is Goodman’s core concern, creative expression, that dominates the piece. And, while its improvisatory nature may not wear well, the intensity and conviction of her performance outweigh any negatives.

She knows the dramatic value of lighting and how, as a dancer, to become its sculptured object at a flashpoint. She has the daring to make direct appeals in simple, extended poses.

But Goodman can overplay the sound of silence, and she risks tedium as a result, except that here she incorporates rhythmic panting as a key element.

Similar traits could be found in her choreographic retrospective given by the excellent others, but the dancers themselves always inhabited the works and clearly Goodman adapted to those idiosyncracies.

Fred Strickler and Sam Weber stressed the lyrical quality of their soft-shoe unison duet--all loping, swinging easiness that builds to a comically exhausted finale.

L. Martina Young inherited no such problems in “Theme With Blues Variations.” Her trademark movement--slow, sensual extensions wrapped in a defiance that predates in-your-face hostility--here found its outlet compellingly.

Loretta Livingston and David Plettner pursued relationship trials in “Hard Feelings,” blindly groping toward each other but forever unable to break out of a separate, defeating aloneness.