DANCE REVIEW : Around the World With Dean, Aman

Thirty years ago, the founders of the Aman Folk Ensemble created a company with a uniquely American vision--to present not just the cultural traditions of a single nation or region, but to offer a world-dance panorama on every program.

The concept seemed adventuresome to some observers, superficial to others, but it survived and even flourished right here in Los Angeles.

In celebration of that achievement, the company commissioned for its 30th anniversary a work that is a world-dance panorama in itself: Laura Dean’s spectacular “Light,” in which folkloric materials from all over are sampled and reassembled according to the priorities of postmodern structuralism.

That may sound shocking to purists, but the local premiere of “Light” at the Alex Theatre on Sunday proved that Dean is simply doing in one, 20-minute work what Aman has done in its repertory for three decades: take music and dance from many cultures out of their original contexts and boil them down into showpiece entertainment.

The difference, of course, between “Light” and Deanne Sparks’ new hard-sell Tahitian suite for the company is that Dean spares us the illusion of a specific exotic society. Instead, she shows us the contemporary world we know: people moving between traditions, genuinely (if glibly) multicultural, a world in which heritages clash and form something new.

Using two dozen skillful dancers and musicians, Dean creates an articulate style from a compendium of sources. In their propulsive score, she and her co-composer John Zeretzke combine Native American and West African drums with instruments from Ireland and North Africa and add a layer of fiddles for sweetness. The result is a distillation with a glowing life of its own, a kind of anthropological dream both strange and familiar.

Similarly, the movement may highlight a Central Asian arm motif or an Eastern European line-step or a shoulder-shake that could belong to several traditions--but Dean’s characteristic fixation on repetition and formal patterning keep the specifics subordinate to a grand architectural design.

Unison drive is unrelenting and irresistible here, and though Dean varies it through counterpoint and softens it in passages of spinning, she ultimately projects it right in the audience’s teeth--just like all the Aman suites constructed for maximum punch. Consider it Aman in miniature--everything you need to know about this company in 20 minutes.

Well, almost everything: The mellow vocalism of the Nevenka women in two segments on Sunday reminded everyone of how the success of Aman has brought other ensembles into being--some with deeper, less aggressive approaches to folklore. Moreover, the magnificent red and white costumes used for Barry Glass’ new sumptuous, large-scale Posavina (central Croatia) suite at the beginning of the program supplied proof of the fabled material riches in the Aman archives.

But questions remain, even after 30 years. With the house lights off and no narration, for instance, how do you know exactly what you’re watching--or isn’t that important in a world-dance panorama? Why do people who normally dance for one another in their native villages always get Amanized into professional chorus lines dancing for outsiders (the audience)?

Aman has just cause to take pride in the success of its 30th-anniversary program and its many accomplishments over the years. Not the least of them is offering a major contemporary choreographer a bold opportunity for growth. But anniversaries are a good occasion for reality checks--and this company really needs to look at its repertory with an eye to how much has been lost in the relentless pursuit of easy applause.

Aman was originally scheduled to dance this program in Royce Hall, but the Northridge earthquake led UCLA to move the company to the Wadsworth Theater. However, when its stage proved too small for “Light,” the company chose the Alex in Glendale: a theater with a low stage and disastrous sight-lines for dance if you’re seated in the front half of the orchestra. The ticket and will-call lines were also a nightmare on Sunday, but that problem, at least, can be more easily fixed.