DANCE REVIEW : Ukrainian Troupe Showcases Folklore on a Human Level

On tour in America for the first time, the 50-year-old Veryovka Ukrainian National Dance Company is an old-fashioned, full-service folklore ensemble like few others seen in this country recently.

For instance, the Moscow-based Moiseyev dancers performed to taped accompaniment on their last visit--but Veryovka brought a fine 10-member band and an even finer chorus of 27 to the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts on Thursday. Moreover, its singers and musicians used microphones only when placed way, way upstage behind the dancers. Otherwise, they remained gloriously unplugged--in contrast to the relentlessly over-amplified Africans, Brazilians, Cubans and Spaniards appearing on Southland stages this month.

To those of us who find loudspeaker-folklore no folklore at all, hearing at human scale the full-throated vocalism and instrumental detail of the Veryovka performance proved deeply pleasurable even without factoring in the variety and charm of the program.

Except for one foray into folk timbre, artistic director Anatoly Avdievsky kept the chorus producing classical sonorities--just as the choreography by Olexiy Homon exploited the lightness and elegance of the 20 ballet-trained dancers. Inescapable during the Soviet era, this stylization of folklore is now increasingly discredited, but Veryovka gave the approach great integrity--especially in the old songs of faith and solidarity.

Of the dances, perhaps the most indelible showed the women hanging ribbons on a tree, then taking wreaths and moving together sweetly, solemnly in moonlit circles to sumptuous choral accompaniment. Something about a culture’s sense of soul seemed very tangible at that moment, and even the high-energy squat-kicks and barrel turns of the inevitable Hopak finale couldn’t entirely erase its afterglow.

* The Veryovka Ukrainian National Dance Company appears today at 8 p.m. in the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 12700 Center Court Drive, (800) 300-4345. Tickets: $16-$32. The company also dances Sunday at 3 p.m. in the Long Beach Terrace Theatre, 300 E. Ocean Blvd., (310) 436-3661. Tickets: $15.