MUSIC AND DANCE REVIEWS : Sternberg Troupe Relies on Movement

Racism, cults and pornography were among the topics tackled on Sunday afternoon by choreographer Donna Sternberg and her troupe in a splendidly danced, but conceptually confusing concert at Cal State Los Angeles.

Concluding the inaugural season of the Los Angeles Dance Series, the four-member company (augmented for this performance by dancers Michael Meyer and Ken Morris), offered a program of pieces by Sternberg that included one repertory work, “Shadow Self,” and three premieres: “Untitled,” “Inside/Out” and “The Line.”

In “The Line,” the most ambitious and problematical of these new works, Sternberg wrestled with the dilemma of pornography in ways that seemed to careen between fascination and condemnation.

With a raised platform as the only prop, and set to an electronic sound/text score by Craig Kupka, “The Line” involved a pair of undulating, barely dressed women (portrayed with mesmerizing intensity by Susan Kawashima and Julia Felker). Through a series of dramatically unconnected scenes the pair were ogled, pursued, murdered, and bound by two men (Meyer and Morris). Were the women victims? Or did they represent free expression and the men their perverted, censorial oppressors? It was hard to tell.

While “Inside/Out” was less provocative, it was easier to decipher. Three women (Sternberg, Kawashima, and Felker), sequentially responded in movement--folding inward in pain or thrusting out in defiance--to taped autobiographical memories of racial bigotry or sexual discrimination.

“Untitled” also featured three dancers (Felker, Kawashima and Maria Cleary). Costumed in ruffled, knee-length jump suits that made them look like zany American pioneers, the trio evoked images that ranged from bouncy girlhood to a more resigned, but serene maturity.

Though an unpretentious romp, “Untitled” was the best demonstration the afternoon offered of Sternberg’s exceptional ability to communicate through pure movement. Beyond the prerequisite leaps, turns, and slides, all the works on this program made masterful use of both dramatic focus and gestural subtleties (such as the use of hands; palms shielded or vulnerably exposed). Where Sternberg faltered was in the effort to make specific ideas or incidents fit the more conceptual perimeters of dance. Each of her works contained superb moments, but the cohesion of those elements remained elusive.