Stepping Out With Frit and Frat

Talking to Frit and Frat Fuller is a stereo experience.

Seated on the hardwood floor of a San Fernando Valley dance studio, unfazed by the stagnant air of a recent heat wave, the twin brother co-artistic directors of KIN Dance Company toss the conversational ball back and forth with alacrity.

They not only start and finish each other’s sentences, but do so at warp speed. Fortunately, they also share a creative sensibility--one that’s right in sync with the cultural moment.

Combining the techniques of modern dance and ballet with moves pulled straight from MTV and the clubs, the Fullers’ dances are a hybrid of Hollywood hustle and an avant-garde affinity for social commentary.

“We like to talk in our work, to communicate something,” says Frit. “A lot of the time, people have real deep social or political issues [in their work], and we’re all for that. But sometimes the issues in our work are not so serious, not so heavy.”

“Sometimes we say something and sometimes we don’t,” adds Frat.

Says Frit: “We tried to figure out how we could work in the area of social issues but still make it in a way that your youngest audience, no matter what [its] cultures or backgrounds, could look at it and get something out of it.”

The signature KIN style will be on display this week, when the all-male company presents its first full-evening concert engagement, at Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica, beginning Thursday. The program includes the premiere of “Viewer Discretion,” “Listen to the Rhythm” (1994), “Stomp” (1992) and a work-in-progress called “Life’s a Bench.”

The dances on the Highways bill are typically KIN in their mix of topicality and fun.

Shown as a work-in-progress in February, “Viewer Discretion” is among the more lighthearted dances that the Fuller brothers have created to date. Three men on toilets, all reading copies of a certain metropolitan daily newspaper, perform what has been described as “bare-bottomed disco moves in perfect post-Motown style.”

“Listen to the Rhythm,” on the other hand, is more characteristic of KIN’s serious side. Performed at Caltech in 1994, the piece uses the metaphor of a fence between neighbors to discuss racism.

Similarly, the 1992 “Stomp” alludes to the controversy surrounding gays in the military and also raises more general questions about the problematic relationship between young Americans and patriotism.

All of these subjects, though, have come from the Fullers’ own experiences growing up in Texas and, more recently, living in Southern California.

The identical twins, now 31, were raised in San Antonio before that city had developed much as a cultural center. “The arts in general are not that big there,” Frat says. “It is now, but it wasn’t then.”

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Two of five children--and part of a closely knit extended family--they spent a good deal of time at reunions, church gatherings and the like. And it was at such functions, rather than in more formal settings, that the brothers were first introduced to the performing arts.

“Our reunions would be huge and my father would play [guitar] in his juke joint band,” Frit says.

Frit, Frat (these are family nicknames that the brothers have always used; their real names are Joseph Alexander and Joseph Elexander, respectively) and their younger brother Lance also began to sing as a trio. “We started singing gospel when we were very young,” Frat says. “And that opened the door for us as artists,” Frit adds.

From that early experience, they became hooked on performing, which they went on to pursue through several disciplines. “We got interested in theater in high school, and from our interest in theater, we took a dance class at a community center,” Frit says.

“Mom wanted us to take dance because she knew it was something we wanted to do,” he continues. “But they didn’t think we were going to focus on it.”

Yet the brothers did more than focus. Undaunted by their late start--they began training at the comparatively advanced age of 18--the brothers knew they’d found their medium.

With no ballet background, they started in a modern dance class that turned out to be a challenge for all involved. “We got in there and we were so determined that [the instructor] said, ‘OK, I’m going to try to work with you guys,’ ” Frit says.

After only one year of formal schooling, in fact, things started to click. Shortly thereafter, the brothers were accepted at CalArts, where they studied dance performance and, later, choreography, earning bachelor of fine arts and master of fine arts degrees in 1986 and 1988, respectively.

Clearly, the admissions committee saw that the brothers had potential, undeveloped though it may have been at the time. “You’ve got to have technique,” Frat says. “We didn’t have that,” Frit adds.

“But CalArts accepts you on your performance,” Frat explains. “Choreography was a stronger point [for us] from early on and they saw that.”

What followed was a trial by fire. “When we got to CalArts, that’s when the technique came and began to sink in,” Frit says. “It was hard. A lot of the guys that come there had had a lot of training.”

At times, the brothers found themselves in situations that seemed comic enough to be outtakes from a summer movie. “We had this ballet teacher and she assumed you knew what was going on,” Frit says. “She would say [ballet terms] in French, with her Russian accent, and [the other students] would know what she was talking about. We had no idea.

“She’d go, ‘Somebody help them!’ ” he continues. “It was intimidating. But it was good because then we had to go to the library and look it all up and figure out what everything was.”

Eventually, though, the brothers caught up to their peers. And while they didn’t end up pursuing careers primarily as dancers, it wasn’t for want of talent.

“We thought we’d come out dancers,” Frit says. “But they pushed us to put our energy into choreography.”

As choreographers, the Fullers’ lack of formal training actually turned to their advantage. “We were very open as far as what we perceived as movement,” Frat says.

Ultimately, he says, the CalArts experience was invaluable. “Best decision we ever made career-wise, culturally, creatively, everything,” Frat says. “We learned a lot. Very good program.”

After graduating, the Fullers turned to commercial dance to make ends meet. Since then, they’ve appeared in several films, including “Dying Young,” as well as choreographed or performed in music videos by RuPaul, Janet Jackson and others.

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But it is KIN that is the realization of a long-held goal. “Our first interest was to start a company,” Frit says. “We went into the commercial area [first], which was great, but we wanted both tracks.

“We didn’t want to get too sidetracked with the commercial work,” he continues. “We wanted to focus back in on what we really wanted to do.”

Founded in 1992, the KIN roster varies from a core group of six dancers to more than twice that many. And its work has caught on quickly.

Times dance critic Lewis Segal, for instance, has called KIN “absolutely fearless and utterly in touch with the young, enthusiastic public, confirming their growing strength and popularity.”

The secret of their success, say the brothers, is inclusivity. “Everything is really segregated [artistically] in L.A., commercial from modern, ballet, performance art,” Frit says. “Everybody’s got their thing going on. But it doesn’t serve people in dance.

“What we’re working on is trying to get everybody together,” he continues. “Anybody can come to see our work and get something out of it,” Frat adds.

The appeal is a function of the Fullers’ own particular choreographic stew. “A lot of it is vocabulary,” Frat says. “We have modern in our vocabulary, but we also take everything [else] we know and put it in there.”

“We’re on that edge of commercial and modern,” Frit adds. “So the way our company works is we try to stay on that edge so that we can have something that anybody can enjoy.”

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KIN DANCE COMPANY Highways Performance Space, 1651 18th St., Santa Monica. Dates: Thursday through Sunday, 8:30 p.m. Price: $12. Phone: (213) 660-8587.