DANCE REVIEW : Ballet Buffet: From Shanghai Soup to Vancouver Nuts

Don’t look for much unity in “UNited We Dance,” the optimistically labeled festival at the War Memorial Opera House.

Helgi Tomasson, head of the San Francisco Ballet and host to dancing guests from a dozen nations, declared lofty aspirations at the outset.

“I believe our festival will be a way,” he said, “of acknowledging our differences and celebrating our similarities.”

So far, with nine companies heard from, the differences have far outweighed the similarities. Eclecticism is alive if not particularly well in the beautiful city by the bay.

Each of the participants has brought a new piece, made at home. Each of the vehicles has utilized an intimate ensemble. Those were the entry stipulations. So much for similarities.

After two wildly applauded inaction-packed nights at the ballet, it is becoming clear that San Francisco has assembled a striking variety of nationalistic perspectives. Stylistic attitudes fluctuate from moment to moment. So do standards of taste and invention.

Everyone dances pretty well. Technical achievements are solid. But inspiration remains elusive. The pervasive unifying force in the festival would seem to be the absence of originality.

Anyone who came here looking for cutting-edge trends may go home disappointed. Anyone content to graze in a big, bizarre ballet buffet, however, must be happy. Even if the nourishment is dubious, even if the flavors tend toward blandness, the exotica remains compelling.

The exotica on Wednesday included nearly everything from Shanghai soup to Vancouver nuts.

The nuts came first, with Ballet British Columbia and an opus titled “Can you believe she actually said.” John Alleyne, the blissful-deconstructionist choreographer, cited Erik Bruhn, the noblest Dane of them all, as a prime mentor, but the quasi-improvisatory exercise on display here pointed to a looser, Tharper image.

Elegant Mozart, conducted by Emil de Cou, rose from the pit. But the dancers--plaintively decked out in practice clothes--ignored the music with virtuosic resolve.

They were too busy limbering up, twitching, preening, jerking and quirking. When push came, as it were, to shove, John Ottman mimed a tangled pas de deux with an outsize sweater and mustered a disjointed monologue about his domestic introduction to Terpsichore. Kirk Hansen got his body taped to the stage floor.

The Canadian enterprise was innocent, hand-me-down fun, for a while at least. Mozart survived unscathed.

Far more problematic was “Tao Hua Tan,” a.k.a. “Peach Blossom Pond,” which introduced the Shanghai Ballet from the People’s Republic of China to the United States. We didn’t think anyone made ballets like that anymore.

Remember “The Red Detachment of Women”? Remember that delirious demonstration of heroic bravura, Soviet-style mock-realism, narrative naivete and the artless fusion of Western customs and Eastern accents? Well, here it is again, stripped of its pugilistic message and mercifully distilled to 25 minutes.

The plot is simple. A nasty clan leader is spurned by a pretty young widow who loves a noble stonemason. The bad guy seeks bloody revenge on the good girl. Purity ultimately triumphs in spirit if not in body.

Yang Yang Lin’s choreography borrows tellingly from the old Russian masters. Ben Hong Chen’s Technicolored score, conducted by Jean-Louis Le Roux, surges and gushes without blushing.

The leading roles were danced with lithe authority by Si Jia Shen and Chun Yuan Li. Among the forces of symbolic evil, by the way, was a particularly sleazy fellow who danced with a crippled leg. Subtlety wasn’t the issue here.

The Italian contribution to the festivities involved Amedeo Amodio’s “Dialetti” (Dialects) performed by the Aterballetto company of Reggio Emilia.

An elaborate program note referred to abstract explorations of “lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility and multiplicity” as defined in the lectures of Italo Calvino. The dancing, however, suggested primitive explorations of the macho crunch and pelvic thrust, accompanied by a thumping, cutesy-quote-ridden electronic score by Giuseppe Cali.

The choreography seemed mired in cliche. But Amodio’s focus may have been distorted by last-minute adjustments required when Alessandro Molin, the central danseur, withdrew because of injury. With no one to replace him, the septet simply became a sextet. Something was lost, one suspects, in reduction.

The zonk-’em offering on the agenda came courtesy of Vicente Nebrada’s National Ballet of Caracas, which paraded something aptly titled “Fiebre” (Fever). On scratchy old recordings, a diva named La Lupe crooned, screeched and whined seven Latino-American popular songs while four couples, alone and in combinations, offered dizzy distillations of the ballroom bolero.

The men, ever manic and macho, tossed and twirled the women, ever willowy and sensual, over their heads. Invariably, the women soon swooned to the floor. It was very elemental.

The choreographer’s annotation told us that “the movements meld with the seductive music, reflecting the feelings of the Latin soul.” It gives one pause.

For its part, the home team ventured a potentially trendy premiere: Mark Morris’ “Pacific.” Attending aficionados had hoped for something sensational from the aging naughty boy of American dance. But the naughty boy wasn’t naughty this time. Drat the luck.

Morris kept his men bare-chested but dressed them in voluminous skirts, designed by Martin Pakledinaz. The women were more modestly attired. Drat the luck.

The crucial impulses emanated from the pit, where Roy Malan, David Kadarauch and Roy Bogas toyed with sparse, crisp and Asian-accented trios of Lou Harrison. Morris translated the sounds into sparse, crisp, Asian-accented movement patterns for nine of San Francisco’s finest dancers.

Minimalist ritual would seem to be the expressive key here, and Morris went about his business with stern, even rigid, discipline. One waited in vain for the climactic gesture--literally as well as figuratively--yet savored Morris’ art in the process. Even more, one savored his craft.

Incidental intelligence:

* In Thursday’s coverage of the opening performance, it was reported that anyone who was anyone was there. That included a thief who invaded the dressing room assigned to members of the Australian Ballet and stole $650. It was, according to Herb Caen in the San Francisco Chronicle, all the cash the dancers had. True to the spirit of international unity, colleagues from other companies passed the hat to make up the loss.

* “UNited We Dance” continues at the War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco, through Sunday night. Tickets $10-$85. (415) 865-2000.