The Dancers Rose Above the Dances

Two of the dance world’s most beloved flagship franchises came to grief in 2000, each shortly after Southland engagements.

In May, the Martha Graham Dance Company and school shut down, citing crippling financial problems, and by the end of summer the Bolshoi Ballet also suffered a major crisis.

Returning to Moscow after a sold-out U.S. tour, the Bolshoi suddenly underwent a drastic reorganization imposed by the Russian government--a reorganization in which the Bolshoi Theater’s top administrators as well as the artistic director of the ballet were fired without notice. Both situations are in flux, so stay tuned.

Locally, the Dance Kaleidoscope series continued to muddle along, and a new BalletFest at Cal State L.A. showcased California classicism just as unevenly. Happily, the new, five-part COLA (City of Los Angeles) performance series at the Los Angeles Theatre Center showed how a strong curatorial focus and sheer guts can fuse disparate experiences into a memorable omnibus event.

No fewer than four new dance-related feature films turned up in 2000, none of them documentaries for a change, and none more endearing than the British boxing-into-ballet fable, “Billy Elliot.”

On stage, however, great dancing easily outclassed the few notable new dances, with the best unfamiliar choreography on view arguably a tossup between Paul Taylor’s unexpectedly courtly “Cascade” (to excerpts from Bach concertos) at Glendale’s Alex Theatre in March and Merce Cunningham’s innovative “Biped,” in which dancers interacted with projected motion-capture animation at UCLA’s Royce Hall in April.

Otherwise it was the year of dance vehicles: choreography as fodder for unforgettable performances. Here are 10 of the best, in chronological order:

1. La La La Human Steps

For the most intricate pointe virtuosity imaginable and sheer fortitude: the women of La La La Human Steps in Edouard Lock’s dark and nasty “Salt” at the Irvine Barclay Theatre and L.A.’s Wiltern Theatre in February.

2. Patrick Damon Rago

For meticulous technical control and miraculous defiance of gravity: Patrick Damon Rago of Stephanie Gilliland’s dynamic, locally based Tongue ensemble at the Luckman Fine Arts Complex at Cal State L.A. in February.

3. Stuttgart Ballet

For a wondrous ability to look inspired when dancing just about any kind or quality of choreography, no matter how mundane: nearly everyone in the Stuttgart Ballet in mixed rep and the full-length “Onegin” at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in February.

4. Michael Trusnovec

For energy to burn and an unsparing determination to incinerate all of it in every moment: Michael Trusnovec of the Paul Taylor Dance Company in Taylor’s sizzling “Syzygy” at the Alex Theatre in March.

5. Steve Zee and Amrapali Ambegaokar

For dancing together as if different idioms and cultures didn’t matter, only rhythm and a profound sense of connection: Steve Zee of the Jazz Tap Ensemble and Amrapali Ambegaokar of Anjani’s Kathak Dance of India in the otherwise sprawling “Soul to Sole” at Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts in April.

6. Igor Markov, Alina Solonskaya and Yuri Ananyan

For a volcanic fusion of passion and classical technique: Igor Markov, Alina Solonskaya and Yuri Ananyan of the Eifman Ballet in Boris Eifman’s daring and rough-hewn dance-narrative “Red Giselle” at Universal Amphitheatre in May.

7. Nina Ananiashvili and Svetlana Lunkina

For proof that Russian ballerinas are still inimitably profound: Nina Ananiashvili as Juliet in the Bolshoi’s “Romeo and Juliet” at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and the Orange County Performing Arts Center in June, and Svetlana Lunkina as Giselle with the same company in New York’s Lincoln Center a month later.

8. Suzanne Farrell Ballet

For renewing the Balanchine legacy with maximum luster: a majestic, meticulous “Divertimento No. 15” by the new Suzanne Farrell Ballet at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in September.

9. Kelucharan Mohapatra

For the genius in the details: 74-year-old Kelucharan Mohapatra in his reconstructions of classical Odissi solos from ancient India at the Japan America Theatre in October.

10. Scott Fowler

For demonstrating that great Broadway show dancing isn’t a lost art: Scott Fowler, especially in his tap and ballroom specialties in “Swing!” at the Ahmanson Theatre in November and early December.

*

Performance of the Year: Tap phenomenon Savion Glover in his supremely musical, daringly restrained “Foot Notes--The Concert” at the Wilshire Theatre in March. Rarely has state-of-the-art dance technique and unlimited energy been focused to this fine a point for a whole evening.

The Mikhail Baryshnikov Award for using star power to accelerate the evolution of dance literacy: Mikhail Baryshnikov, of course, for “PASTForward,” an invaluable festival of vintage postmodernism performed by Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project at Royce Hall in October.