Movement in a Democratic Direction

It’s a recent Saturday afternoon at the Rozann-Zimmerman Ballet Center, in a Chatsworth strip mall, and the school’s two windowless studios are full of dancers treading familiar and unfamiliar ground. Predictably, one room holds a circle of pony-tailed girls, twirling uncertainly to the strains of Tchaikovsky’s “Waltz of the Flowers,” in preparation for their in-studio version of “The Nutcracker.” But in the next room, the adults of a new ballet company, La Danserie, are doing something more deliberately off-center.

A dancer in roller skates and a satin evening gown is being gently shoved and pulled back by her formally attired partner in what looks like an unusually enigmatic first date. Then comes a lyrical ballet interlude, and several works that range from gesture- and prop-filled dance theater to bouncy jazz ballet. Still in progress, the pieces will be unveiled at Highways Performance Space starting Friday.

The trio of choreographers at the heart of La Danserie--Patrick Frantz, Lisa K. Lock and Jennifer McDonald Wilson--are aware that their troupe’s name brings to mind a cafe or a clothing boutique more than a dance company, but they don’t consider these associations antithetical to their purpose.

“It’s a bit like when you go shopping in France,” says Frantz, a one-time member of the Paris Opera Ballet. “You go to la boucherie for meat, la boulangerie for baking, so, La Danserie--it’s the place where dancing is made. We are craftsmen, and we want to make dances that are accessible to all kinds of people.”

First formed in 1997 by Frantz, La Danserie was transformed the next year into a choreographers’ collective. Although the three dance-makers see themselves as democratically organized, Frantz holds the title of artistic director. “He’s had the most experience,” says Lock, referring to Frantz’s extensive choreographing and teaching career with several American regional ballets, and his stint as artistic director of the Pittsburgh Ballet in the 1970s.

Having taught at several Southland ballet studios, he bought what was then the Rozann-Zimmerman school six years ago and now provides a stable home for the new company. Lock and Wilson were living nearby and taking classes from Frantz when the idea to form a collective came up.

“Patrick really wanted a company,” Lock recalls during a rehearsal break, “but nobody can do it alone without burning out in the long run. So the idea is that if one of us burns out, the others keep going. And we wanted an environment that is supportive and helps us grow. So far it’s been working.”

La Danserie has performed at a few local colleges but drew its first critical recognition with two 1999 Highways programs, which L.A. Times critics have described with words like “artful” and “exhilarating.” In a ballet piece called “Pointillism,” Lewis Segal said Frantz inventively built tension, which was released “in sunbursts of group motion,” while Wilson’s work was “intriguing,” and Lock’s postmodern pieces had “a distinctive shape and purpose.”

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La Danserie’s three choreographers share an emphasis on emotional content, which is often reflected in musical choices. Scores for the upcoming program include rhapsodic tangos as well as excerpts from Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich. Another thing they have in common is their ballet base and a disdain for any kind of slick, technique-driven dancing.

“We don’t want to do movements that are just pretty, to please the eye,” Lock says. “We want to do movements that are toward a deeper purpose. So the shape isn’t the most important thing--I want the shape to make sense.”

The three sections of Lock’s “Tea for Two,” which occur at intervals on the new program, explore the stages of a relationship. “In the first one with the skates, it’s early, and there isn’t much familiarity,” she says. “Then when they’re sitting on chairs in the second one, they’ve just had a big fight, and they don’t quite know if they want to go on. In the last one, [in which a spinning stool is used], they are totally intertwined.”

As a dancer, Lock is best known for her solo work on Kaleidoscope programs and at L.A.C.E. (in 1995) and her recent appearances with Francisco Martinez Dancetheatre. Ballet-trained in her native Switzerland, Lock, 44, studied contemporary styles during her master’s degree work at Cal State Long Beach.

At the rehearsal, with her thin, angular build and close-cropped yellow-white hair, Lock looks idiosyncratically at home in a run-through of McDonald Wilson’s new tango-tinged ballet trio, “Imagenes en el Espejo,” as well as in the percolating jazz ballet number created by guest choreographers Frit and Frat Fuller (of the L.A.-based dance company, Kin).

Frantz’s contribution to the Highways program, “Triptych,” appears to owe something to Balanchine’s “Serenade.” “Triptych” features swift, lyrical transitions to Tchaikovsky and even a stylized fall, which Balanchine famously kept in from a “Serenade” rehearsal. But Frantz makes it clear he isn’t a fan.

“Balanchine made a few masterpieces, then he should have stopped,” Frantz says, citing “The Four Temperaments” as an example of ballet in which “steps are just black and white notes, nothing of color. That to me is not dancing, that to me is just gymnastics.”

Frantz returns over and over to the idea that emotions are the primary way dance communicates. “I think the problem with ballet is that it’s so close to circus now,” he says, his markedly French-accented English getting more precise as he articulates his disdain. “It’s who can jump the highest, who can turn the most. Where is someone like [British ballerina] Margot Fonteyn or [Paris Opera star] Yvette Chauvire, who can turn two pirouettes and make the whole audience cry? Who needs 64 fouettes--that’s not art, that’s circus.”

Other ballet trends Frantz would like to avoid are personality politics and elitism. “I want to communicate to people, not to say, ‘I am so smart, you can’t even imagine what I’m telling you,’ ” he says. “I think a lot of people choreograph to make themselves happy and to make themselves look smart.”

Frantz wears a T-shirt that says, “The rules are the rules,” but he makes clear this refers to the rules of classical ballet, which need to be understood before they can be broken, he says--not to any heavy-handed company restrictions.

In fact, Frantz wants to be inclusive about who can join La Danserie--anyone who takes a minimum of three ballet classes a week at his studio. Among the nine performers in this concert are those with razor-sharp technical skills, as well as a few adult dancers from evening classes in whom Frantz has glimpsed enthusiasm for performing.

For McDonald Wilson--at 28, the youngest La Danserie choreographer--the inclusion of non-dancers is also an intriguing idea.

“I want to not make dance so separate from society,” she says. “It seems that only dancers go to see dance in L.A. now, and I’d like for everyday people to see it too. I’ve done a piece with office-type movements in it and someone being aggravated and frustrated--it was Lisa who played the role--because I have a day job in an office [as an insurance agent], where there’s no artistic outlet.”

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Reared and trained in Southern California, McDonald Wilson also studied on the East Coast and danced with the Milwaukee Ballet before moving back home. “It’s a very supportive environment [at La Danserie],” she says. “Different from a company where you don’t get the chance to try choreographing. And it’s nice that when you have a problem, you can talk about it and get advice from the others.”

“We’re all strong personalities, but we’re good friends and colleagues,” Lock adds. “We have a good communication going, and if things get a little rough, we talk and it gets better. We’re growing and learning from past experience to be open.”

With each choreographer at a different career stage (Frantz, at 58, no longer performs), they have specific ideas to contribute to La Danserie. Frantz would like to stage a history-of-ballet program, starting with dance as it was done at the court of Louis XIV.

They all envision La Danserie growing stronger and remaining here (when the company name is spelled in all caps, the LA has a double meaning, Lock says), but perhaps having to tour Europe to stay busy. And they’d like to become financially viable enough to earn a living here and offer work to dancers who might normally leave for a city with more dance opportunities. A recent, substantial private donation to the school and the company has allowed them to pay something to dancers and choreographers.

Teaching ballet at night as well as rehearsing with La Danserie on weekends, McDonald Wilson would like to be free from her office job. Lock sighs about spending so many hours on the freeway, driving to and from her teaching jobs at local colleges. Still, they are willing to keep shuffling schedules to continue working with La Danserie.

“If we get somewhere, great, and if we just do small places like Highways, that’s fine for us,” says Lock. “As long as we can do our work the way we want it, uncensored. It’s not about the money or getting famous.

“The thing is, we just have to do it, otherwise we’ll go crazy. I think if you would do something for free, anyway, then it’s right.”

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“RE-PERCUSSIONS,” La Danserie, Highways Performance Space, 1651 18th St., Santa Monica. Dates: Dec. 15-17 and Dec. 22-23, 8:30 p.m. Price: $15. Phone: (310) 315-1459.