Choreography With Character

The Neva Russian Dance Ensemble takes its name from the Neva River in Russia.

“Only there are no accent marks in Russian,” Nadia Riazantsev, manager of the 15-year-old San Francisco-based dance troupe said with a laugh in a recent phone interview from that city. The company uses the accent mark, she said, to stress the pronunciation: NeeVAH.

The troupe traces its origins to the 1920s, when dancer-choreographer Vladimir Perfilov fled the Bolshevik Revolution and eventually settled in San Francisco.

“He formed a dance company at the Russian Center here and attracted a lot of American dancers who got excited about this art form,” Riazantsev said. “When my husband came in 1989 for a visit, he saw a lot of Americans dancing Russian dances, which he thought was rather odd.”

Her husband, Vladimir Riazantsev, 50, was born in Gryazi, Russia, and now is the company’s artistic director.

They’ll bring a part of the troupe to two Southland venues--Laguna Beach High School tonight and USC on Tuesday.

“My husband still dances,” she said. “But he will be performing only one solo on this tour, as well as playing the accordion because he’s also a very fine musician. He has a master’s degree in music. He writes some of the pieces we’ll be doing.”

Nadia Riazantsev doesn’t dance, but their son, Pavel, 20, is “one of our stars,” she said.

The company ranges from 24 to 30 members; 11, including three musicians, will perform in Orange County and Los Angeles. “That’s all the budget could muster,” Riazantsev said.

The $100,000 budget had jumped dramatically from $63,000 the previous year.

“That was scary. We jumped [expenses] really rapidly, and we didn’t expect it,” Riazantsev said. “One thing we did was, we started going on huge tours. We’re planning to split our company in half, and half will be going on tour in the Southwest in middle of March [for three months].

“Unfortunately, when you have a smaller budget, you have to break for costume changes, which is what you guys are going to get. Up here, we can do straight dancing. You’ll get musical interludes.”

The program will include character dances from Russia, Moldavia and Ukraine.

“Character dancing,” she explained, “tells a story. That means there is an interaction between the dancers that is obvious. In ballet, there are stories as well. In character dance, the stories are more clear, more obvious. Boy meets girl; they fall in love; the girl is shy; she runs away. Or the boy is shy, and a friend encourages him to follow through.

“It’s very folk-like and down to earth. A lot of young children, boys especially, don’t understand ballet, but character folk dancing they understand. The men are very masculine. Their movements are very graceful but very strong. There’s intricate footwork, which goes into the characterizations. Children are very much excited by this form of dance, whereas ballet can be a little esoteric for them, a little out of reach.”

Vladimir Riazantsev comes to this tradition from his own performing past. He was a soloist in the Red Army Chorus and Dance Ensemble before joining the Moiseyev Dance Ensemble in 1970. He danced with Moiseyev for two decades, receiving recognition as a people’s artist, a government award given for excellence in an artistic field. He emigrated in 1991.

“Vladimir is an excellent student of Moiseyev,” Riazantsev said. “He gives us either some of Moiseyev’s choreography or some of his own, which he learned from ethnic traditions in towns he lived in or researched.

“It is authentic. You’re getting the real thing. The only questionable issue is that Moiseyev tries to make sure people don’t fall asleep. So he bombards the audiences with information--dancing very fast, putting all the tricks into one dance. Vladimir learned that from him--not to bore the audience.”

* The Neva Russian Dance Ensemble will perform ethnic character dances of Russia, Ukraine and Moldavia tonight at the Laguna Beach Artists’ Theatre at Laguna Beach High School, 625 Park Ave. 7 and 9 p.m. $6-$12. The concert is part of the Laguna World Beat Series. (714) 497-2787.

The company also dances Tuesday in Bovard Auditorium at USC in Los Angeles. 7 p.m. Free to $10. (213) 740-1111.