Weekend Review : Dance : Fresh Look at Cal State Festival

As if to prove that the stultifying staleness of 1994 was ancient history, “Dance Kaleidoscope” arrived at Cal State Los Angeles on Friday looking fresh, sharp and au courant. Could this be the same annual showcase of local work that always rolled over for backdated academic rectitude and self-enchanted navel gazing?

It could: Programming lapses on Saturday left no doubt. But at least the selection panel found room for hot young artists giving Southern California a distinctive profile--and hot older artists as well.

Newly situated in the Luckman Complex, “Kaleidoscope” I and II did suffer periodically from the dread Aquarium Syndrome: the compulsion of some dancers to remain isolated upstage under colored light. For instance, powerhouse modernist Stephanie Gilliland ventured a new solo focused on heroic, stamina-testing undulation, but it achieved little impact Friday miles away from the audience.

Fortunately, the tap and flamenco segments used the forestage that night, with Mark Mendonca in the former and Laila del Monte in the latter launching spectacular creative experiments grounded in brilliant technique. In an untitled solo to his own music, Mendonca developed a compelling, structurally ambitious showpiece from the simplest walking steps.

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To live music composed by her husband, Adam, Del Monte explored contrasts between a fearful, all-but-paralyzing tension and explosions of defiant self-affirmation. The promising but ultimately inconclusive “Tin Soldier” modern-dance solo by Michael A. Mizerany to music by Gorecki exploited parallel contrasts: restless, nervous gestural statements versus stretched, heighted expressions of yearning.

More Gorecki ennobled an excerpt from John Malashock’s “Window Dressers,” with lush spatial patterns and inventive same-sex partnering embodied with great technical refinement byfour members of Malashock’s San Diego-based modern dance company.

The premiere of “Enemy Within” (choreography by Frit and Frat Fuller, music by Ron Hendrick) found the men of the Kin Dance Company stuck in a none-too-distinctive jazz style that soon became infinitely less compelling than all the dazzling rope effects surrounding them.

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In two sections from Jacques Heim’s “Te^te en L’Air,” members of his Diavolo Dance Theater investigated every possible way to come down a staircase--including skiing down. But the social satire initially informing the piece soon became lost in all the clever, high-risk physicality.

Charles Maple’s pas de deux from “La Fille Mal Gardee” neatly incorporated every resource of post-Balanchine classicism--including partnering-on-the-run gambits none too comfortable for Jeffrey Plourde. However, Gilma Bustillo remained serene and faultless throughout this Pasadena Dance Theatre vehicle.

The less eventful Saturday program emphasized relationships, starting with a solidly crafted love-after-sex duet, “Bonding,” for Los Angeles Modern Dance and Ballet. Choreographed by Naomi Goldberg to music by Shane W. Cadman, the piece featured Goldberg and former Paul Taylor principal Nicholas Gunn, who each also performed a more generalized solo.

Jazzantiqua and the Mark Shelby Jazz Quartet appeared in Pat Taylor’s recently reviewed family saga “The Prelude” (from “Odysseus Suite”), while Pacific Dance Ensemble spent more time talking relationships than dancing them in Joe Goode’s typically uproarious theater piece “Notes on L.” L as in Love.

The classical Cambodian duet “Tep Monorom” offered a heavenly perspective on L, danced with appropriate delicacy and inner calm by Sophiline Cheam Shapiro and Charya Burt.

Literally at the end of her rope, Melinda Ring intently pulled and stretched against the ties that bind during “Explanation #1” (music by Paul Chavez) but the solo’s incremental changes of position ideally belonged in an intimate studio. Moreover, a couple of Ring’s expressive effects had already been parodied in two brief, endearing comedy solos by Truly Magyar--especially Carolyn Dyer’s compilation of Grahamesque excess, “MSG” (music by Wayne Patterson).

Both Ricardo Peralta’s “Huapango” for California Ballet of San Diego and Jose Vences and Adriana Gainey’s “Oaxaca” for Ballet Folklorico del Pacifico evoked the splendors of Mexico--”Huapango” in a contemporary context weak in choreographic invention but well danced, “Oaxaca” through traditional choreography of great charm and variety even as doggedly executed here.

* Dance Kaleidoscope resumes Saturday with a one-hour children’s program at 10 a.m. $7-$10, and a world dance program at 8 p.m., $12-$17.50) in the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. (213) 466-1767.