National Ballet of Spain Unleashes Passion at Pantages

Don’t confuse National Ballet of Spain with companies offering either academic classicism or folklorico. As it proved on Wednesday--the start of a seven-performance engagement in the Pantages Theatre--this is an ensemble specializing in passion, one that will use anything in its dance-theater arsenal to make the audience just as hot, heavy-lidded and breathless as the image the dancers cultivate onstage.

With time off for three star solos, the program ranged from a gutsy abstraction of stifled sex (Jose Granero’s “Leyenda”) to a gritty dance drama about dangerous sex (Currillo’s “A Ritmo y a Compas”), with a sleek homage to sex and satin (Granero’s “Bolero”) midway through.

Much of it may well seem preposterous in the light of day--but the company’s beauty, skill and intensity are not to be denied, and there are worse fates than not respecting yourself in the morning. Fates such as missing the superbly expressive Lola Greco in “Leyenda,” for instance.

Surrounded by eight women and, often, nine men, this distinguished daughter of the great Jose G. manages to convince you she’s totally alone as she reaches hopelessly for a lover who’ll never be there, or sends out plaintive castanet signals in the universal code of desire. Sometimes she teases, manipulates and alarms Oscar Jimenez--no match for her as a dancer though perfectly cast as an unattainable love object. But her cruel destiny is never in doubt, and Greco pulls you deep inside her pain.

She also lends her grace to the lead female role in “Bolero,” which relentlessly reshuffles phalanxes of men and women but ultimately relies more on changes of costume-color than choreography for its impact. Antonio Marquez leads the males effectively but is better showcased in Victoria Eugenia’s “La Oracion del Torero,” a solo deftly merging flamenco technique and bullfight stances.

Set in a flamenco cafe dominated by tangled relationships never remotely clear to outsiders, “A Ritmo y a Compas” boasts excellent singing and guitar playing (the only live music of the evening) plus dancing of high abandon by Jesus Cordoba and Reyes Orozco as pursuer and pursued. But nobody gets more applause than Mila de Vargas, who performs an impossibly glamorous solo exploiting the kind of massive yet shapely arms Picasso loved to paint.

Completing the program: Eugenia’s “Chacona,” a solo in antique bolera style exploiting the flirtatious vivacity and light, fast footwork of Maribel Gallardo.

* National Ballet of Spain performs tonight at 8; Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m.; Sunday at 3 and 7 p.m. in the Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd., Tickets: $17-$57. (213) 365-3500.