Korean Ballet Stretches Its Wings in ‘Swan’

Whether performing a stylized Kirov specialty or a home-grown essay in hybrid kitsch, the 14-year-old Universal Ballet of Korea has one impressive advantage over nearly every American company: All the dancers embody the identical concept of classical style, the identical sense of placement, line, technical finesse. Whatever their individual talent or training, they speak the exact same movement language--an amazing achievement during a period when economics and internationalism have transformed so many older companies into terpsichorean towers of Babel.

Over the weekend, the Koreans made their American debut in the Luckman Theatre at Cal State L.A., dancing the complete “Swan Lake” in a version by Kirov artistic director Oleg Vinogradov and the full-length “Shim Chung,” a tribute to filial self-sacrifice choreographed by the Universal Ballet’s former artistic director, Adrienne Dellas.

You could argue that they looked tense and locked down in “Swan Lake,” as if on approval or being tested. And certainly they loosened up for the pileup of miraculous narrative improbabilities punctuated with breathless bravura that “Shim Chung” retailed so unceasingly.

In its American premiere on Saturday, this 1986 adaptation of a 1,500-year-old folk tale wanted so desperately to be a 19th century classic that Dellas often seemed to be channeling Bournonville’s “Napoli,” Ashton’s “Ondine” and other sources for inspiration. Played on tape, the score by Kevin Barber Pickard sounded like imitation Minkus while the sets by Myung-Ho Kim reflected a taste for architectural nostalgia as well as a knack for grandiose spectacle.

An undersea divertissement complete with dancing Angelfish, an antic pas de sept for blind men wondrously restored to sight, a high-flying ensemble for lustful sailors simultaneously intent on raping the same helpless heroine: They certainly don’t make ‘em like that anymore.

Unfortunately, it took a long time before Dellas gave the heroine a decent solo--a waste, since Sun-Hee Park possessed perfect proportions for lyrical dancing along with lightness, delicacy and speed galore. For much of the ballet, however, she sat at the back of the stage like Clara in “The Nutcracker,” watching other people dance.

Those other people included several admirable virtuosos (Jong-Pil Lee in multiple assignments and Yoo-Mi Lee as a mermaid, for instance), while her accomplished partners included Jae-Won Hwang (the Sea Captain), Kyuk-Ku Kwon (the Dragon King) and Jun-Kyu Lee (the Korean King). As her father, Hyun-Woo Kim had plenty of charm and acting skill but not nearly enough glue on his mustache.

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The “Swan Lake” on view Friday had been given its world premiere by the Kirov Ballet in the Shrine Auditorium six years ago--at which time it had a different ending every night. Rothbart killed Siegfried on Tuesday, for instance, while Siegfried survived, alone, on Wednesday. The Universal Ballet version, however, opted for the happy ending required of every Russian “Swan Lake” during the Soviet era and also dispensed with Vinogradov’s last-act adagio to the same music Balanchine used for his “Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux.”

Other deletions included half a dozen swans from the corps plus all of the blue eyeliner that St. Petersburg dancers insist on wearing--but otherwise this was the 1992 Kirov production, presented in the same vulgar, anachronistic sets by Semion (a.k.a. Shimon) Pastukh yet with the purity and exactitude of Kirov dancing as everyone’s goal.

Perhaps inevitably, the Koreans failed. Nobody can duplicate two centuries of ballet tradition in 14 years. But you could see how the attempt had stretched the capabilities of the company’s finest artists toward a noble, poetic ideal of classicism and you could take pleasure in the high devotion of the company as a whole.

As Odette/Odile, company prima ballerina and general director Julia H. Moon looked impeccably refined but seriously under-energized--too small-scaled and emotionally distant in the white acts, far more promising in the ballroom scene, though ultimately not strong enough to get through the Black Swan fouette marathon successfully. She was considerately partnered by Dragos Mihalcea, a handsome, callow Siegfried from Romania. Chung-Lin Tseng danced Rothbart capably, Ji-Hoon Yum the inescapable interpolated Jester.

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* Universal Ballet of Korea repeats “Swan Lake” with different principals on Sunday, 7 p.m., in the Luckman Theatre, Cal State L.A., 5151 State University Drive. $20 (students and senior citizens)-$40. (213) 343-6600.