DANCE REVIEW : Footprints Choreography Needs Some Kick

One soars; the other burrows. If a sampling of dances by Freddie Moore and Ray Tadio is characteristic, Moore aspires toward a higher light in his choreography. Tadio focuses upon the psychological nitty-gritty.

In both cases, however, the choreographic skills of the New York-based Footprints co-founders, seen Saturday at the Morgan-Wixson Theater, fell short of their vision and their own impressive dance technique, as well as that of their dancers.

In his solo, “Hello Alvin,” Moore progressed from twisted, tense isolations and asymmetrical balances to increasingly bigger, freer movements, all directed toward an empty chair that represented the missing Alvin Ailey. Unfortunately, the movement itself did not carry sufficient emotional weight.

His “Move On” flirted with ideas of leadership emerging from a clustered group--Moore, Tadio, Carolyn Lanfredi, Mitsue Miyake, Ayako Morigami and Earl Mosely. But the outside challenges or inspirations stayed out of focus.

His “In the Life Of,” fit the pattern too, although it predominantly was a movement study to percussive music by Kitaro. Yet the dancers, seen against a starburst, periodically reached up to pull down . . . what? Energy? Power? Inspiration? It ended with attempts to build a human ladder to the stars, and the second try seemed triumphant. But why?

Nitty-gritty was Tadio’s concern, whether in the male woman-abuser of the ironically titled “Loverman” (seen last year in the same theater) or the universality of child abuse that emerged from the many-tongued babble of “Glimpses No. 5.”

“Glimpses” opened with schoolyard frolics by three women and two men dressed identically in white shirts and short blue skirts. They told the same childhood story about owning a dog, but in different languages. They sported, joked, mimicked the Supremes singing “Baby Love.” But baby love suddenly led to tales of child abuse. Terrible, of course, but what was the audience supposed to do beyond general sympathizing?

Moore and Lanfredi also danced Lester Horton’s 1953 “Dedication to Orozco,” weighty and universal in its compact, iconographic focus on the revolutionary spirit.

A somewhat different program was scheduled to be danced on Sunday afternoon.