Lithe Ballet Argentino Captures Attention

Julio Bocca may have wowed American Ballet Theatre audiences for years, as well as moved onto Broadway recently for a stint starring in “Fosse,” but his heart is in his own decade-old company, Ballet Argentino--and it showed on Friday, opening night of a weekend engagement at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa.

Since the last time this small Buenos Aires-based group appeared in the Southland--in 1994 at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts--the quality of dancing, staging and choreography has zoomed into the eye-catching range.

There were many engaging moments on a mixed program made up almost entirely of contemporary works, although perhaps a few too many leotard ballets--even Balanchine worked in some costumes with more fabric now and then.

The company’s “go for it” flinging extensions and budding personalities were highlighted in the first half, most effectively in Mauro Bigonzetti’s “Sinfonia Entrelazada.” It’s a ballet of comings and goings with an eventually beguiling mix of classical squareness, snaking semaphore and swift, quirky transitions.

Taking its bounce and optimism from a Mozart score (alas, recorded, as was all accompaniment for the first half), “Sinfonia” featured great duets from Benjamin Parada with Luciana Paris, and Bocca with Cecilia Figaredo. The men had particularly inventive, vibrantly performed solos. Only the women’s costumes--leotards that managed to look like ill-fitting Band-Aids, worn with dirty-looking pointe shoes--were a drawback.

Parada’s lubricity, bold line and casual vibrancy also made him a focus of “Suite Generis.” This trio, by Alberto Mendez, had Sergio Amarante and Parada manipulating the diminutive Julieta Gros like a twig--which might have become tedious, except for the self-conscious courtly flourishes, done with a wink to strains of Handel and Haydn. Gros had a wide-eyed yet commanding presence, all eager to please and equipped to do it.

The sound of a bandoneon in the pit was welcome at the beginning of the second half, as the Fundacion Astor Piazzolla Quintet launched into an overture for the dynamic “Piazzolla Tango Vivo.”

All twitchy drama, fabulous poses and inventive movement gambits, the piece moved seamlessly from one tango to another. Choreographer Ana Maria Stekelman (who also did “Tangokinesis” and three scenes in the Carlos Saura film “Tango”) has kept the best of balletic precision and merged it with florid arching and angst. Sepia lighting beamed down in stark bouquets, producing harsh shadows that added to the drama.

The company’s agility and athleticism came together with considerable authority in several sections--notably, a vibrant male trio (Amarante, Christian Alessandria and Juan Pablo Ledo), and a women’s quintet in which Paris, Gros, Figaredo, Lorena Sabena and Rosana Perez hit shapes and whipped from curves to angles effortlessly.

Bocca himself looked most commanding in a solo with a bench, in a sort of “Jeune Homme et la Mort” mood. It culminated in a brief flirtation with a siren in black, but in the end, he left with the bench, not the girl.

Unfortunately, the company opened with its weakest link--a bland Don Quixote pas de deux, which couldn’t animate the vast, unadorned stage. Oscar Ariaz’s “Adagietto” followed, a nicely performed folding and unfolding pas de deux that also seemed a bit lost in space.

Without an orchestra or sets in a grand opera house atmosphere, a pas de deux has built-in problems, and although the Don Quixote seemed unlikely to catch fire soon, it may fare better in the more intimate Alex Theatre, where the company performs later this week.

* Julio Bocca and Ballet Argentino will appear at the Alex Theatre, 216 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale, Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m. $20-$43. (800) 233-3123.