Making Great Strides

Modern choreographer Jiri Kylian’s work is usually danced by the world’s finest ballet companies.

American Ballet Theater, the National Ballet of Canada, Joffrey Ballet Chicago and other top troupes have danced Kylian’s trenchant innovations in this country even more than his own highly regarded Nederlands Dans Theater.

But a company that’s never stocked a toe shoe, a company created, in fact, to offer feel-good, community center fare, will perform one of the renowned dancemaker’s works this weekend at the Irvine Barclay Theatre.

In doing so, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, which last visited the Barclay three years ago, will get another chance to show how far it’s come.

“I think we’re the only non-ballet troupe in America to have a Kylian work,” said Hubbard founder Lou Conte, who built the group into a major modern-dance repertory ensemble able to attain pieces by such celebrated choreographers as Twyla Tharp.

The 22-year-old company also will dance the West Coast premieres of three works: “Rassemblement,” by Spain’s Nacho Duato; “To Have and to Hold,” by Kevin O’Day, a former Hubbard dancer; and “Group Therapy,” by Chicago’s Harrison McEldowney, best known for jazz-influenced work.

The mixed bill will culminate with Kylian’s “Six Dances” (1986), a riotous romp to music of Mozart. It’s performed in powdered wigs and 18th century undergarments and tweaks the era’s social and political mores.

Hubbard dancers are ballet trained, so tackling the work’s classically inspired vocabulary wasn’t an insurmountable challenge, Conte said by phone recently while the company was appearing in Glendale. But the parody made other demands.

“I don’t think you need a Baryshnikov to dance this piece,” he said. “As long as there’s some technique there, I think you need people with natural movement ability, a sense of timing and a sense of comedy.”

Acquiring the work posed a significant challenge too. But the lengthy process--eight years, all told--charts the troupe’s growth.

Hubbard, founded to entertain senior citizens with jazz dance, was labeled “airheaded” early on, said Conte, a former Broadway dancer. And when Kylian saw the troupe at the 1989 Holland Dance Festival, it was still doing “lighthearted, pop culture stuff.”

Still, he said, “Jiri was very gracious and said it was well-rehearsed and the dancers were good. I told him I was trying to do something about [improving] the repertory.”

Indeed, by the next year, Hubbard had gained a major role in American dance after having become custodian of several Tharp works during a period in which Tharp lacked a troupe of her own.

Returning to the festival, Hubbard shared the program with New York City Ballet, Kylian’s Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) and other heavyweights.

“It was wonderful,” Conte said. “We were excited to be in their company. I talked to Kylian briefly and said, ‘Some day we’d really like to have one of your works.’ ”

Fast-forward to 1995, by which time Hubbard had acquired five Tharp works. Feeling that the company was dancing them too often for some critics, Conte went in search of greater diversity. He made an official request, which went to the bottom of a foot-high stack of similar requests Kylian had from companies seeking permission to dance his works.

Conte was told it would take two years for Hubbard’s turn to come. About 18 months later, Conte invited one of Kylian’s assistants to Chicago. He accepted.

“I told him I really wanted to have a Jiri Kylian piece by our 20th anniversary [which was in 1997]. He said, ‘That’s a legitimate request, and maybe a reason to get your letter closer to the top.’ ”

It was, and Hubbard danced “Six Dances” two years ago--a year before NDT danced it in Orange County.

It is full of sexual innuendo, swordplay and stiff, strapless, bodiless ball gowns that dancers push around on wheels. Kylian calls it a burlesque, Conte said.

“His jumping-off point was the things going off socially at the time,” he said. “It would be like if somebody did a dance about the late ‘90s that would include the morals of our political leaders. Also, I think he wanted to play on Mozart’s humor and what a character he was.”

Hubbard troupe members say the fast-paced piece with frequent directional changes and weight shifts demands all the ballet training they’ve got. Yet the organic progression and musicality of Kylian’s movement eases the challenge. “Sometimes, you do a step, and the next one doesn’t feel like it should go that direction,” said Kitty Skillman Hilsabeck. “But his choreography flows, it moves you where your body wants to go.”

The dancers agreed that the six-vignette suite makes equal demands on their dramatic skills.

“We’re not used to having to act and to bring so much to a part,” Geoff Myers said. “The tendency is to overplay it and not allow the choreography to speak for itself, yet it’s so well-done, so well-timed, it’s much better if you do.”

Kylian evidently is pleased with the troupe’s interpretation; he’s giving Hubbard a second work. “Petite Mort” also is danced to Mozart and utilizes gowns-on-wheels and swords. Yet, in stark contrast, it’s darkly dramatic.

“I think his work is just so intelligent,” Conte said. “It’s like Mozart: You don’t want to change anything.”

* Hubbard Street Dance Chicago performs today at Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive, Irvine. 8 p.m. Also 8 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. $25-$30. (949) 854-4646.