Getting Outrageous With ‘Carnaval 2000’

In the eastern Brazilian state of Bahia, when something called samba reggae emerges, you have to imagine the air is full of rhythms intersecting, and the dance floors are vibrating with movements that come from everywhere.

One way it gets exported is with Bale Folclorico da Bahia, which closes its latest show, “Carnaval 2000,” with an eponymous samba reggae fest that turns into genial chaos.

Much of the dancing of this young company, founded in 1988, has the quick transitions and snapping footwork of West African styles, but there is also a loose-limbed, high-flying articulation of limbs, with inventive beats and turns, that leans more toward the stretched, classical lines of ballet or modern.

In a few numbers on Sunday at the Haugh Performing Arts Center in Glendora, the first of three local venues for the show, the raucous transgressions of carnaval time were evoked--none of the coy flirting of Mexican folkloric dance, for instance, but instead, overt sexuality and revelers of both sexes who erupt into brawls.

But possibly the most exciting of their theatricalized folk stagings are those that spring from the game-influenced Brazilian martial arts practices of macule^le^ and capoeria. The company’s men did stylized combat with dexterity and elan--stick fighting as if it were a minuet during “Macule^le^” (choreographed by general director Walson Botelho); and for “Capoeria” (staged by Botelho and artistic director Jose Carlos Arandiba), exploring how to swing the leg as a weapon in revolving turns without decking the guy across from you, who is doing the same thing.

Musicians connected best with the audience when they came forward on the stage--Daniel Sousa with his wry solo on berimbau (a musical bow with gourd resonator, which he had electrified), and Dora Santana, with her resonant voice and brief samba.

Amplification problems seemed to prevent a balance of drum and voice throughout--or else a recurrent stridency was merely part of the blending of various beats. Certain of the stagings lost focus occasionally, but at the end, the audience--encouraged to deliver their own version of the dance--seemed braced by all the energy.

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Bale Folclorico da Bahia’s “Carnaval 2000” also appears at the Smothers Theatre, Pepperdine University, 24255 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, tonight at 8. $35. (310) 456-4522; and at Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive, Irvine, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 3 p.m. $32-36. (949) 854-4646.