L.A. Debut of ‘Chiaroscuro’ Shines at Kaleidoscope

Dance Kaleidoscope programs are usually made of many moods, but on the second program of this year’s edition, at the Luckman Theatre at Cal State L.A. Saturday night, only a few moods seemed to dominate. It’s not that all the dances looked alike--although many of them shared the floppy minimalist postmodern dance aesthetic--it’s that they seemed limited in their scope. Thankfully, there were a few dances with more adventure and power.

Among these was the Los Angeles premiere of Susan Rose’s “Chiaroscuro,” which had the advantage of an evocative taped score, taken from Cecelia Bartoli recordings of 18th century music. None of the performers in Susan Rose and Dancers commands particular attention individually, but her choreography builds an affecting world structurally. She seems to have been influenced by the restless semaphore and mock grand manners in, say, the work of Bill T. Jones (especially in his witty, rapid-fire gesture solo, “21”).

Appropriately, “Chiaroscuro” is also full of paradoxical movement and flashes of poses from familiar paintings. Rose’s gift for tossing the energy around from dancer to dancer keeps the eye moving and the brain thinking.

The strongest technical skills and performance personalities arrived with two other pieces: “Patsy and Hank,” a diverting classical romp by Robert Sund to country tunes, danced by “State Street Ballet,” with impressive solos by Kathryn Petak and Sayat Assatrian. And the always remarkable kathak performer, Amrapali Ambegaokar, who summoned the diamond-bright fierceness of the Goddess Durga in warrior mode in a brief solo.

Then there were the introspective pieces. “The Red Brick Diaries” by Madeleine Dahm for Hybrid Physical Theatre seemed to take place in a half-explored section of someone’s memory--and not a very interesting section either. A pictorial sense of introspection and despair permeated two solos danced by their choreographers--”Loneliness,” by Aida Amirkhanian; and “Illusion” by Kiha Lee. Hae Kyung Lee’s “Ambient Link,” had even fewer moods or clues as to what it might like to be. Danced by three couples on platforms, it consisted of slow-motion revolving in sculptural lifts and embraces.

And perhaps as an antidote to the tranquilizer-friendly “Ambient Link,” there was Stephanie Gilliland’s excerpts from “Full Frontal Enigma,” danced by her company Tongue. The vocabulary of Gilliland’s punk jock pieces is getting very familiar, with its spring-drop-roll repetitions and its head-long plunging that resolves time after time into menacing looseness. But some earlier works have had more shape and ability to communicate. Interestingly, there was a contact improvisation duet on the program, “Time and Time Again-1999” by Shel Wagner and Stefan Fabry. In this dance-sport exercise, which highlights the relaxed giving and taking of weight--developed and seemingly stuck in the “go with the flow” ’60s--the roots of many other pieces could be seen, reminding us that it’s to see dance after the roots have grown into something closer to art making.