In ‘Amvaaj,’ Physicality Eclipses the Spiritual

For the uninitiated, spirituality had to be taken on faith in Banafsheh Sayyad’s “Amvaaj,” an eight-part, self-styled “journey of seekers” skillfully performed by her six-woman Namah Ensemble in the UCLA Dance Building on Saturday.

The work’s presence in the World Festival of Sacred Music proclaimed its spirituality, and the program notes kept invoking it, but what you saw remained obsessively material in its focus on the virtuosic manipulation of velvety skirts, gossamer scarves and cascades of long, flowing hair.

Not for Sayyad the selfless submission to an engulfing spiritual force that dominates the Sema ceremony of the Whirling Dervishes. No, in her bravura improvisational solo “Search,” she gloried in her hard-won technical prowess: initially swirling a translucent veil in complex patterns as she whirled, then lashing her hair rhythmically, next striking deeply sculpted flamenco poses accented with bursts of authoritative footwork and finishing with bold, mercurial undulations sustained by a spectacular command of balance.

Equally spectacular but unclouded by conflicting metaphorical ambitions were the musicianship of Hossein Behroozi-Nia, Pejman Hadadi and Brad Dutz.

“Flee from all traps,” warned a poem by Rumi used as the accompaniment to one of Sayyad’s graceful group dances. What about the trap of virtuosity? The trap of glamour? The trap of being complacently, vacantly decorative?

Sayyad may have mastered the lore of traditional Persian, flamenco and tai chi movement but her lush, worldly style caused “Amvaaj” to become, quite unintentionally, a statement about the hopeless desire for spiritual purity of people unwilling to give up their pleasures, comforts or illusions. And that includes most of us.