BEAT GOES ON

Fifty-year-old ballet stars don’t belong to the future of the art, so Mikhail Baryshnikov had to reinvent himself as a modern dancer to stay where he’s always been: at the front of the line.

Ten years ago, Rudolf Nureyev celebrated his 50th birthday by dancing Albrecht in “Giselle” and looking more lifeless than the Wilis. It was an occasion but scarcely a performance. On Saturday, however, Baryshnikov danced four challenging modern dance solos at the Wiltern Theatre, sustaining at 50 the same miraculous fusion of speed, precision and unearthly lightness that made him the icon of virtuosity in his prime.

Indeed, Kraig Patterson’s “Tryst,” the newest solo, had nothing much in mind other than exploiting those qualities in a breezy showpiece to music by Bach. Patterson, a dancer in Mark Morris’ company, can pack a phrase with clever playoffs between technical display and gestural nonchalance, a Baryshnikov specialty ever since “Push Comes to Shove.” And, even if the choreographic ideas grew alarmingly thin, who could complain about Baryshnikov’s high-velocity multiple turns: deliberately off-center, pressure-less swirls that rocketed him into playful slouches and effervescent hand shimmies executed with so much flair they became etched in space and memory no matter how fast they piled up.

Patterson’s point of departure seemed to be “Chaconne,” the classic Jose Limon solo, also to Bach, also on this program. Here, however, the gestural language he quoted proved anything but nonchalant, with all the poses strikingly noble in design, weighty in effect. Weight, however, has never been a Baryshnikov specialty, so it became a lesson in artistry to watch this short, slender man give the work’s signature arm sculpture its proper spatial resonance. Baryshnikov has had the wrong body for dance throughout much of his career--the wrong height and proportions for classical prince roles early on and now the wrong musculature for Limon. His genius has been to present the choreographic text with such perfect clarity and mastery of detail that wrong becomes right.

In “Unspoken Territory” and “HeartBeat: mb,” Baryshnikov reached what may be the final frontier for a ballet-trained emigre: improvisation. In the former work--an unaccompanied dance drama by Dana Reitz--his options included speech, something he ventured in Escondido two years ago but didn’t pursue Saturday. In the latter piece--a collaboration between Twyla Tharp alum Sara Rudner and sound designer-architect Christopher Janney--his own amplified heartbeat became his primary accompaniment and focus: As he appreciably changed its speed through various actions, the dance assumed its distinctive structure and personality.

Obviously, heartbeat management is a form of virtuosity nobody taught Baryshnikov at the Kirov, but there was more: rumbling counter-rhythms and accents he generated through movements affecting the sensing and transmitting apparatus on his bare chest. These sounds were eventually mixed with a spoken text on cardiology and a Samuel Barber adagio but initially stood on their own as unique, deeply personal body music.

*

Intimations of mortality? Of course: Watching any 50-year-old dancing to his own heartbeat would inevitably invoke them. But this 50-year-old kept the audience’s pulse racing almost as rapidly as his own with brilliant throwaway torso squiggles, supercharged turns and all that music from inside: intimations of greatness.

“Unspoken Territory” began with Baryshnikov warily backing on to the stage and whirling to face some imagined threat. Indeed, much of the piece stayed conditioned by his sense of imminent danger: of watching everything intently including himself, of staying in the shadows and, above all, of going somewhere by backing up. Wearing a quasi-archaic costume by Santo Loquasto, he sometimes assumed formal poses out of Assyrian wall reliefs but also undercut the pervasive mystery of the piece with many gestural non sequiturs: shrugging, biting his nails, making a shadow puppet of his hands. As he backed off the stage at the very end, still on alert, a car alarm went off somewhere in the Wiltern parking lot and it seemed an ideal complement to the choreography and performance.

With pianist Nicolas Reveles especially artful, the five-member White Oak Chamber Ensemble provided fine accompaniments as well as expert performances of music by Mozart, Mendelssohn and Brahms flanking the dances. String tone, however, proved painfully thin--one hopes because of the immense amount of moisture in the air on Saturday rather than the quality of the group’s instruments or playing.

*

* Mikhail Baryshnikov and the White Oak Chamber Ensemble repeat this program from Wednesday to Saturday at 8 p.m. in the Wiltern Theatre, 3790 Wilshire Blvd. (at Western). All performances are sold out. (310) 825-2101.