Lewitzky Presents Four Familiar Favorites

It is no longer news that the 80-year-old doyenne of West Coast modern dance, Bella Lewitzky, is in the twilight year of disbanding her company. In what was billed as the company’s final Long Beach performance, her troupe trotted out a quartet of all-too-familiar favorites Sunday at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center on the Cal State L.A. campus.

This isn’t to say that the dances or the dancers were not up to terpsichorean snuff--they were, although the aseptic “Sextet,” choreographed (and gym garb-costumed) in 1994 by Lewitzky’s daughter, Nora Daniel, proved to be more a simplistic romp dealing with acrobatic movements and yoga-like poses than a soul-grabbing work of art. David Stanton Bryant’s percussive score droned instead of inspired, ultimately fizzling.

Another 1994 piece, “Meta 4,” was more successful. Set to an elegiac string quartet written by Robert X. Rodriguez, this four-movement composition showcased four veteran Lewitzky dancers: Walter Kennedy, Lori McWilliams, John Pennington and Karen Woo. In a series of fugal moves, the group alternated among solos, trios and duos, where backward falls were executed with ease and grace. The final movement shaped a more hopeful mood, with a circle signifying metaphoric fellowship.

Drama and passion are the hallmarks of the 1990 “Episode #1 (Recuerdo)”. Featuring a black-clad trio of women on a bench, as well as a stunning solo by Yolande Yorke-Edgeli, its plaintive qualities of memory and loss amplify emotions of the heart. Effortlessly moving from knees to sensual full extensions, Yorke-Edgeli fleshed out Larry A. Attaway’s solo piano music.

The crowd-pleasing “Episode #4 (Turf),” closed the program, combining militaristic precision with four scantily attired, muscle-bound men on carefully sanded boxes. The work’s slow-motion arabesques, Charles Atlas poses and push-pull contests climaxed in a show of feral unity.