Folklorico Lets Grand Scale Speak for Itself

Spirit, in all its aspects, may be found in the smallest detail, but there is something to be said for largeness of scale to convey spiritual scope and grandeur, particularly when dealing with a culture as rich as Mexico’s.

With its 65 dancers and musicians, Amalia Hernandez’s Ballet Folklorico de Mexico can suggest such a panorama uniquely.

Billing itself as “the original and only” Mexican folk ballet, as it does, is less a matter of hubris than a proprietary statement of fact. We have seen much of the choreography before, to be sure, both through previous visits of this Mexican national company and in the numerous offshoot troupes it has inspired. Nothing, however, matches its scale and impact.

Thursday, in an extraordinary coincidence, the company introduced a new dance in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion derived from the Chihuahua-based Tarahumara Indians and planned long before it was announced that six Tarahumaras would be running today in the 100-mile endurance race in the Angeles National Forest.

The race for them is hardly another athletic competition. Their tribe desperately needs the prize money and any other help it can get. Hernandez’s troupe made a modest $500 donation to the runners and announced that this performance of the “Chihuahua” suite was dedicated to the six runners, who were in the audience.

The poignancy of their situation added a dimension to the dance. One wondered what their reaction was to seeing their culture theatricalized and put on stage. Even so, the dance made a remarkable impression.

Dressed in plain serapes and each carrying a triangular rattle in one hand, 14 men bounded on stage, their bodies bent, their stride buoyant and space-devouring. They looped into a wide circle and began to run.

At peak moments, they shouted a single syllable, a hand held to the mouth then flung forward as if sending a kiss to the world.

A group of women, similarly dressed, soon joined them and repeated the sequence. The simplicity of the floor patterns, the tension in posture as against the traversal of space and the sound of their voices all combined to convey staggeringly serious purpose and dignity.

The second part of the suite, consisting of contemporary waltzes and polkas, was a wrenching shift from epic to domestic comedy. It was accomplished and entertaining, as was the whole evening, but it was a different world.

Everywhere the troupe looked grand, vibrant and committed, as always, in familiar sequences drawn from various Mexican states. Salvador Lopez was the expert, tireless lariat spinner. Lucas Zarate was the powerhouse Yaqui Deer Dance soloist. Ballet Folklorico remains peerless.

* Ballet Folklorico de Mexico will dance today at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave. $15-$55. (213) 972-7211.