MUSIC AND DANCE REVIEWS : Music Rules in Aman Program on North America

If you think of Aman as a living museum of a dance company, which tries to re-create celebratory moments from many different cultures, you might have thought of yourself as visiting the North American wing Saturday night at El Camino College in Torrance.

What brought the evening alive was mainly the music--from great pickin’ and singin’ in the Appalachian suite and mariachi madness for Mexican dances to the whiz-bang jug band interlude and--introducing a great swing-era set--a wonderfully overwrought piano tickling out “Moonlight Serenade.”

For the Louisiana French music section, the magic that was worked with frenzied strings and accordion might have happily been called a Cajun “wall of sound.” Oddly, a rather stiff vocal solo by artistic director Barry Glass was credited in the program, whereas a livelier solo by someone else was not.

Dancers kept pace with the beat throughout, but did not exactly match the energy and spirit of community generated by musicians. In truth, it seems an impossible task to master the physical skills of so many traditions that are performed more expertly by masters who specialize, and Aman dancers do well enough. But perhaps the better you know a dance form, the more you miss seeing its special qualities displayed. The basic steps of the hula were traced in Aman’s version, for instance, but much missed were the sharp dynamics of knees and hips and the easy swing that links upward and downward placements.

Nor is the company aided by an overuse of circle patterns, which even dominated sections of waltzing and the Lindy Hop. Although circles logically arise often in folk dance, Aman is part of a theatricalizing tradition and can afford more inventive choreographic strategies. No matter how many ways you do a circle, you’re still just going ‘round and ‘round, when there are so many other directions to choose.