DANCE REVIEW : Women’s Dances Dominate Avaz Program

Call it the Night of the Rippling Hands: a program by the Avaz International Dance Theatre at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple on Saturday dominated by women’s dances from Iran and Central Asia, in which sinuous wrist and finger action provided a dimension of intricate, varied splendor--not to mention another definition of the term “digital technology.”

Embellished with backbends and accented with snapping fingers, these hand motions became an invigorating unison statement by the six women in company director Anthony Shay’s new sextet from Samarkand. In golden robes over long dresses, they flowed smoothly through geometric formations, offering a vision of Uzbekistani elegance marred only by the movement of audience members trying to reach their seats long after the dance had begun.

The brief and oddly static group coda of Shay’s “Tak-Navazi” segment also tried for large-scale richness, but this suite of Persian classical dancing only came alive in its solos: extended tests of fleet delicacy for Despina Arzouman, Christina Brown, Brandy Healy, Emmanuelle Marc and Kelly Ann Anthony to atmospheric woodwind and percussion accompaniment.

The third new work, a vaguely contemporary Greek taverna suite by Shay and Preston Ashbourne, looked unfinished and suffered from the Avaz men’s tendency all evening to seem easygoing to the point of utter passivity. No, we don’t need bared teeth, padded dance-belts and leaps-with-scimitars to define male prowess, but shouldn’t the guys’ dancing be a bit more, um, eventful?

As usual, Avaz musicianship proved exemplary, with a six-member band reappearing throughout the program in a number of national guises. Vocalist Linda Levin proved especially artful in her Albanian interlude and Shay once again drew cheers with his execution of old Persian rhythmic songs.