Dance : Final ‘Dance Kaleidoscope’ Program at Cal State L.A.

Dance forms born in pop culture made more highfalutin kinds of choreography look ingrown on the uneven, nine-part final program of the annual “Dance Kaleidoscope” festival at Cal State L.A. on Saturday.

Scott Heinzerling’s idiosyncratic quartet “Between a Hard Rock and a Place” defined this contrast through playoffs between rote balleticisms and powerful movement adapted from sports. Alas, Heinzerling’s own highbrow instincts led him into a reflexive use of classical music (Paganini) and a formula recapitulation finale.

Along the way, however, he undermined assumptions about dance performance through startling reversals: having the dancers recline to watch the spot-lit audience, for instance. Moreover, a spectacularly limber solo for Bogar Martinez proved that Heinzerling could create choreography as inventive as anything on the program.

In an easygoing segment by the Jazz Tap Ensemble, new member Dormeshia Sumbry established a sophisticated rhythmic commentary on the song “Just You, Just Me.” Artistic director Lynn Dally offered the local premiere of “Another Summer,” a solo that developed from unaccompanied step-clusters to a supple gloss on a composition by company musical director Jerry Kalaf.

Accompanied by the galvanic music of Michael Shrieve, Electrotonus performed “Baciagulupo,” a propulsive Daryll Stokes quintet also seen at the April “Black Choreographers” festival. This time, however, the costuming avoided glitz and the gay politics informing the piece gained a surreal dimension from the last-minute substitution of a woman-in-drag (complete with mustache) for one of the original male dancers.

Women in drag also turned out to be a central concept of “No Mo Men,” a sly compilation of tough-guy moves choreographed by Dennon and Sayhber Rawles for Jazz Dancers Inc. Using music by Bela Fleck and the Flectones, the piece lampooned male swagger by having the same muscle-flexing, finger-snapping, cigar-chomping masculinities shared by a nine-member unisex ensemble.

Upholding male sensitivity: a jazz-dance solo from “The Blues According to Ray,” choreographed by Bernice Boseman of Oui’ Geometer Dance Company. Here the usual virtuoso step combinations of jazz adagio gained a compelling edge from Marty Almaraz.

Two Joffrey principals tried to nudge ballet out of mere prettiness. In an inconclusive excerpt from his “Hope and Reflection” (to Scarlatti), Carl Corry staged a candlelight memorial service for 10 dancers that he interrupted with a bravura solo that looked less like grief or meditation than a grab for attention.

In “Etudes,” Rebecca Wright increasingly let her dancers’ feelings and relationships reshape her fluent, academic choreography to Chopin. Jennifer Nunes made the second solo a memorable statement of conflicting impulses.

Like Wright, modern dance soloist Rose Polsky exploited major contrasts within a phrase to dramatize the clash between dreamy lyricism and pinner drives. But Polsky’s “One Voice” (to recordings by Victoria de los Angeles) remained splintered and self-consciously exquisite.

Shel Wagner’s “Anatomy of a Fall” set the slow collapse of Bryan Wilk against frenzied character vignettes by other members of Pacific Dance Ensemble. Set to music by Paul Chavez, the piece proved elliptical except for the communal statements of body paranoia: AIDS-terror made physically graphic.