DANCE REVIEWS : ‘Prime Moves’ at Japan America

From the creation of the world to the state of the blessed souls in paradise, the “Prime Moves” program of modern dance Saturday at the Japan America Theatre ranged with hazardous ambition from the beginning to the end of time.

The eight-part evening, consisting almost entirely of solos, did include enough depressing incidents--of childhood abuse, lamentation, cringing from nameless threats--to keep the program fixed on the human, all-too-human.

In “The Creation,” Robert Henry Johnson put lots of witty verbal and movement spin on James Weldon Johnson’s felicitous version of the biblical story. But the work, choreographed in 1989 and danced in Los Angeles for the first time, included too many extraneous bits to keep the focus secure.

Johnson showed supreme litheness and flexibility later when he danced a three-part pure-movement solo--”Karibu”--which he crafted to traditional African music. But here he lacked ideas to make a purposeful design.

Alas, to evoke the state of the “Truly Blessed,” Michael Peters relied more on Ennio Morricone’s choral music and dancer Eartha Robinson’s beatific smiles and deep conviction than on inventive choreography. The work was a premiere.

Shel Wagner choreographed and wrote the text for “Fish Kiss” (1992), in which she slowly talked through--and physically amplified--an account of childhood abuse. The piece ended strongly with her purposeful emancipation from the situation.

Hae Kyung Lee expressed painful, slow-motion grieving in “Celestial Ash” (U.S. premiere), the only non-solo on the program. Her suffering seemed to veer only into the physical, however, as she grew calmer when embraced by a bare-chested Frank Joseph Adams.

Arturo Alvarez made an exceptionally strong gymnastic soloist in Randy Duncan’s nonstop “Unarmed.” Although he looked fit enough to handle anything that came his way, he occasionally crouched from something unseen overhead. The piece--new to California--failed to make credible what the threat could be.

In his new “Wallfall,” Mehmet Sander hung suspended in a waist-harness from the top of the stage. At various heights, he pushed off and sometimes deliberately slammed into the back wall. At other times he curled into a ball or spun in circles. The work is short and inconclusive.

Deborah Collodel looked expressively lyrical in the floating circles and turns Keith devised for “Madame George.” But his choreography did not quite fill out the poignant Van Morrison song.