DANCE REVIEW : Tricks of the Trade From Guevara Group

Frank Guevara serves as producer, artistic director, choreographer and lead dancer for the program by Dance Theatre of East L.A. running at the Nosotros Theatre in Hollywood through Sunday.

Guevara’s professional background lies solely in the field of commercial dance, and whatever his training or ambitions might be beyond the realm of dance-based TV commercials, music videos, industrial shows and nightclub routines, he keeps relying on tricks of the trade.

Set to music by Elisabeth Waldo, his “Mi Cultura” aims for an epic statement about the relationship of Pre-Columbian Mexico to contemporary Mexican-American consciousness. Unfortunately, what emerges is portentous nonsense: A sequence that might be called “The Sacrifice of the Lame Virgin” (a victim, evidently, of gymnastic partnering) and the standard pre-Columbian adagio for lovers wearing Jaguar-skin bikinis.

Guevara studied at the Plaza de la Raza School of Performing Arts downtown, so he must have had some exposure to the deep love of Mexican folklore reflected in the Danza Floricanto U.S.A. retrospective “Epopeya Mestiza” created there. Like the Floricanto production, his program evokes the memory of painter Frida Kahlo (the fragmentary “Las Sombras de Frida”) but concentrates more on contemporary body display (the raunchy “La Cantina” in particular).

“Solo” showcases Guevara’s anguished sense of isolation through intriguing contrasts between his virtuosic flailing and the wash of group motion elsewhere on the stage. It offers choreographic development (absent in all his other pieces) and confirms his talent for depicting states of feeling.

Even if the level of craft falls below guest Raul Butron’s refined “Episodio I” solo, it suggests there may be a genuine dance artist lurking under all the MTV-style muscle-flexing.

The highlight of the program, however, remains the guest appearance by Ballet Folklorico del Pacifico in a four-part suite choreographed by Adriana Astorga and Jose Vences.

On the intimate Nosotros stage, the traditional skirt-swirling and, especially, heelwork of Guerrero provide exactly the sort of overwhelming theatricality that Guevara’s pieces shoot for (and miss) and with no lapses of taste to complain about.