‘Tap Dogs’ Troupe Celebrates Noisy, Energetic Here and Now

At once the ultimate bachelor party and a spectacular affirmation of the work ethic, the all-male “Tap Dogs” revue has already taken England, Canada and its native Australia by storm over the last 20 months. On Wednesday, its six dancers and two musicians began the conquest of the United States with the triumphant opening of a three-week engagement at the Veterans Wadsworth Theater, sponsored by UCLA.

Few dance experiences are as passionately connected to the here and now. Without any text whatsoever, choreographer Dein Perry and director-designer Nigel Triffitt re-create the world faced every day by most city dwellers: a world of inescapable noise, clutter and unrelenting physical labor. Not only does “Tap Dogs” embrace that world, but it finds the irresistible life force within it.

As motifs pass from dancer to dancer faster than thought, and tests of group stamina go into overdrive, the Dogs reach a flashpoint where they’re caught up in something greater than themselves--and bring the audience along for the ride.

Much of the time, however, they present themselves as ordinary construction workers used to one another and their jobs: guys who go home to their families every evening but who spend most of their lives together, working and joking around. And who tap, nonstop, on every possible surface.

Coming from a steel town north of Sydney, these tap-workers give themselves an appropriate task: raising a gleaming metal edifice on the Wadsworth stage, with the cleats on their work boots defining percussive rhythms that are amplified until each step sounds like a mechanical hammer or a rivet or a drill doing its job. At one point the dancers become a literal tap-engine: chugging forward silhouetted in billows of smoke. They even use power saws to create pulsating showers of sparks: fire-rhythms that extend the choreography and the prevalent work metaphor into another dimension.

There’s also a section in which the Dogs rhythmically slosh in a water trough, sending sprays out into the auditorium (spectators in the first few rows are issued rain-slickers) and one in which everyone hoists Gerry Symonds up on ropes so that he can hang upside down and tap on a metal ceiling-plate. Call it bungee-tapping.

Does the water-dance deliberately evoke Gene Kelly in “Singin’ in the Rain” and the ceiling-dance Fred Astaire in “Royal Wedding”? Could be. Certainly Darren Disney tosses off some disco moves that parody John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever.”

So there’s evidence that the Dogs are media junkies like the rest of us, contemporary artists still attached to the past in their sense of fantasy and in their technical arsenal. In attack, for instance, their dancing clearly derives from the deliberately raw, proletarian tap style developed by Howard “Sandman” Sims, Gregory Hines and others.

But with a difference: American pop culture invariably glorifies loners, rebels, indomitable individuality while “Tap Dogs” focuses on group dynamics--tap as a shared endeavor, another type of male work relationship.

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Throughout the evening, such relationships are shown to be not only satisfying but central to a sense of self-worth--whether on the tap floor or construction site. Appropriately, Perry is the leader or foreman, dancing with such a distinctive blend of technical flash and Aussie diffidence that he emerges as a genuine character: someone you could name Savion Dundee, perhaps.

In one scene, he mentors the brilliant Ben Read and their duet invokes all sorts of insights about apprenticeship without ever descending into play-acting or losing its lightness of touch. In his brief solos and antic comedy, Nathan Sheens may come on a little too anxious to please, but the rest of the Dogs--especially Drew Kaluski--sustain a workaday nonchalance that keep the show on track.

It’s an amazing achievement: celebrating male energy and muscle power with enough intensity to hook a mass audience and yet staying thoughtful and pertinent. Launching showpiece after showpiece and yet remaining true to life in the deepest sense. But “Tap Dogs” makes it happen--even under difficult circumstances.

Due to the need to replace a suddenly defunct sound board, the 70-minute show (no intermission) began 75 minutes late on Wednesday. As a result, Andrew Wilkie’s eclectic score (played live by him and Jason Yudoff) often seemed piped in from the Outback. But the Dogs made their own music and the lighting design by David Murray complemented them.

* “Tap Dogs” runs through Sept. 22 at the Veterans Wadsworth Theater, VA grounds, Brentwood. Tuesday-Friday, 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 8 p.m. Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m. Tickets: $25, $35. (310) 825-2101.