Helios Cuts a Wide Swath of Emotion

From the sexy and sublime to the horrific and unspeakable, Helios Dance Theater is not afraid to tackle tough--or titillating--subjects. In a three-part program Friday night at the Getty Center’s Harold M. Williams Auditorium (part of its ongoing free dance series), the company looked polished and energetic, with much of the credit due to choreographer-artistic director Laura Gorenstein Miller.

“Yellow Roses,” reworked and now billed as a two-part premiere set to the countrified sounds of Ry Cooder, featured a captivating Maria Gillespie in a “fading lover’s” solo. Assuming an array of moods--from haughty to plaintive--Gillespie’s crisply articulated footwork raised the bar on flirtatiousness. Dietmar F. Konig and Diana Mehoudar’s duet embodied the “rocky relationship” syndrome, the inevitable push-pull proving whimsical if somewhat benign.

There is nothing benign about Anne Frank, however, and Gorenstein Miller, in an eight-minute excerpt from “About Anne: A Diary in Dance” (an evening-length work bowing next year), began with a haunting video by F. Ron Miller and Chris Miller.

Explaining how Jews wore layers of clothing when fleeing Nazis, the video fades to reveal the company--John Diaz, Heather Lipson, Gillespie, Konig and Mehoudar, with apprentices Paula Present and Shelley Wilcox, also dressed in peasant-like layers: Stretchy sleeves slap the floor; heads and faces are, at various times, covered in cloth; silent-screaming mouths occasionally brandish gags.

As dancers huddle together, anxiety, fear and anger are too often, however, perfunctorily expressed. Original music will replace the current Bach violin adagio, but sustaining a full-length dance of Frank’s life will require more than literalizations.

Completing the program: the previously reviewed “Angel’s Domain: An Exploration of Life in Los Angeles,” with the new section five, “Starlets.” Camping it up and shod only in one shoe were Gillespie, Lipson, Present and Wilcox, replete with hair-swinging, strutting in slit dresses, and spooning.

With its eclectic repertory, Helios continues to both entertain and stimulate.