Dance : Cultures Fuse at ‘Roots’ Fest

Beginning Friday with antique Persian court entertainments and ending Saturday with a depiction of the suffering and solidarity of the urban homeless, the fourth annual “Dance Roots” festival brought a dozen, mostly emerging, mostly traditional companies to the Los Angeles Theatre Center.

The spectacular cultural juxtapositions of Southern California emerged as the theme of the free event--a theme seized by the La Verne Reed Dance Company in two trios on Saturday: Wayne Biscomb’s intense “Within and Throughout” (none too smoothly combining modern and jazz dance with an African vocabulary) and Reed’s celebratory “Rock With You” (deliriously fusing hip-hop with classical ballet).

The same night, Al Desio’s “Brandenburg Boogie” found him and four members of his Colburn Kids/Tap L.A. group achieving a jazz-Baroque fusion through intricate tap embellishments of a Bach score. However, the most artful--and personal--bridge between past and present came Friday with Tina Gerstler’s duet “Lucid Dreams,” in which Native American music inspired fluid, atmospheric modern dance focused on processes of self-realization.

*

Trying to portray inner-city poverty, Adria Wilson’s large-scale “Fallin’ From Grace” for her Arts in Motion company kept fallin’ into the trap of show-dance showcasing. Only in a sensational male duet at the very end did her work-in-progress discover a way of making technical flamboyance believably expressive.

Among the world-dance artists, pride of place belonged to genuine masters: I Nyoman Wenten and Nanik Wenten in their majestic Javanese “Mahabharata” duet for Bali Java Dance Theater on Friday. The same night, Alberto Toledano and Loreen Arbus dominated an Argentine tango segment with their heat and flash.

In two classical Cambodian dances on Saturday, Sophiline Shapiro floated through exacting tests of balance and sculptural refinement with serene ease. And two kinds of traditional Irish dancing the same night showcased the brilliant footwork of Annee Albritton and Nicole Torrence.

Led by Alvaro Ramirez, L.A. Mexican Dance Theater contributed a vigorous interpretation of the Yaqui Deer Dance on Friday. And Shida Pegahi’s Nay-Nava Dance Theater represented the local Iranian community with a gracious Persian suite adroitly shaped to her dancers’ varying capabilities.