LACE’s ‘Twisted Spring’ Offers Varying Notions of Ceremony for the Season

“Twisted Spring” is the name of the spring dance series at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions in Hollywood, although at first glance it was not especially twisted or seasonal. But the short pieces on three evenings did seem to be straining toward different notions of ceremony, so they might be attempts at giving rites of spring a new twist.

What can make a dance seem ceremonial is a grave pace and weightedness, a reverence for objects and sequencing. Using all these elements well on Thursday night, Sen-Hea Ha created “The Gate of the Woman Ancestor,” a solo that looked like a like a prayer. Barely moving in pools of light or swiftly becoming a warrior, she created crystalline shapes in robes that evoked her Korean dance background.

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The taped music collage (arranged by Edwin Millam) often sounded like Islamic calls to prayer and Christian sacred singing. A second solo, “Hungry Ghost,” was less focused.

On the same program, Carol Cetrone meandered through “Few and Far Between” in a slip. She seemed to want to be a delicate soul, set adrift in sepia tones and shadows, but a more powerful image was of her careless crushing of white butterflies she had released from a paper bag. For Monica Favand’s “Carpal Tunnel,” the pace became frantic, as Favand danced in a maze of crumpled paper to symbolize what her program notes called “an individual lost in the modern world.”

Saturday night’s program began with “The Sentinel,” a brief solo by Michael Mizerany to mournful taped Bartok. Using the floor as a partner, he tumbled in a sort of austere wrestling match with himself, inspired by movement qualities he has perceived in Renaissance frescoes.

The Shrimps closed the evening with the ersatz woodsy ceremony, “Screech.” It began with promise--the ritual toasting of bird’s feet over a toilet paper roll set aflame on the sidewalk outside, then mock formal ushering of the audience into a space littered with heavy ropes.

But then we seemed to be viewing a very slow day in the life of polyester mountain men, as the four-member troupe gathered rope, broke into a Fred Flintstone jig, broke eggs and caressed stuffed birds. To be sure, some ceremonies are better than others.

* “Twisted Spring,” LACE, 6522 Hollywood Blvd., May 23-5, 8 p.m. $8 ($6 members). (213) 660-8587.