Moving at the Speed of Insight

Ranging from the visceral to the visionary, the six dances in the current edition of “Black Choreographers Moving Toward the 21st Century” depict and distill African American experience with a deep sense of mission. Not the same mission, but always one that involves the audience in a new world of insights and feelings.

At Cal State L.A. on Thursday, Winifred R. Harris’ familiar trio “Thunder Is Not Yet Rain” evoked ancient, ancestral goddesses: women of power, sources of inspiration. In Bebe Miller’s new quintet “Yard Dance,” anecdotes about Miller’s visit to South Africa focused on the racial inclusiveness she discovered there. As she talked of bringing that discovery back to the States, she ended her own isolation as a dancer in the piece and joined her company in a final affirmative unison.

In “Endangered Species,” a 1994 sextet by Rennie Harris (no relation to Winifred), another spoken text bitterly described black urban teenagers as “game” to be hunted, while the solo dominating the piece detailed the rage and terror of a youth trying to outrun a bullet with his name on it.

Created in Los Angeles, New York and Philadelphia, these works couldn’t have been more different in style. Winifred Harris fuses idioms and puts a premium on classic modern dance body sculpture. Bebe Miller goes for the surge and swirl of nonstop, postmodern athleticism. Rennie Harris is a master of street and pop genres--especially hard-pumping hip-hop. Together, they remind you that “Black Choreographers” has always undermined any restrictive notions of “black dance” held by black or nonblack audiences.

Less theme-driven than “Thunder,” “Yard” and “Endangered,” three more conventional showpieces on the program strongly dramatized the stylistic diversity of Miller and the two Harrises. In “Blessed,” music by the Cafe of the Gate of Salvation (an a capella Australian gospel choir) accompanied the Miller company’s loose, fluid ensembles--oddly generalized and even impersonal at times, as if she had lost interest in the relationships that once invigorated her choreography without finding anything as distinctive or compelling in their place.

Set to music by Max Roach and Sheila Chandra, “Bitter Suites” evolved from a duet to a seven-woman lineup, with Winifred Harris’ typical use of radical balances as prevalent as her delicate hand-ripples, sensual rotations of the hips and well-integrated balleticisms--including the kind of turning leaps usually reserved for 19th century princes. However, credit the spatial sweep of the dancing for the rush of excitement that this work generated.

Seen on the DanceAfrica America program last November, Rennie Harris’ “Students of the Asphalt Jungle” again offered a spectacular demonstration of group solidarity, pride and gymnastic prowess, set to a mix of music by Goodman, Armand, River Oceana and Pleasuredome. As before, the explosive virtuosity of the piece would have been enough, but Harris’ six men kept surprising everyone with sudden soft, slow-motion moves in which they seemed to hover weightless in the air.

A sense of the miraculous might be the last thing you’d expect to find on the streets of Philadelphia, but Rennie Harris has the proof--on view at the Luckman Theatre through Sunday.

* “Black Choreographers Moving Toward the 21st Century” continues tonight at 8 and Sunday at 3 p.m. Luckman Theater, Cal State L.A. $12-$20. (213) 343-4990.