‘Strange Attractors’ Struggles for Connection

The most cohesive moments in “Strange Attractors” came in a line dance at the very beginning, with choreographer Stephen Petronio and his eight-member modern dance company fluidly slumping, rising, stroking one another, reaching out and withdrawing to the rock accompaniment of Placebo’s “Without You I’m Nothing.” No steps, just convulsive changes of position and a growing intensity from this cluster of bodies.

Like some of the earliest postmodern experiments, this intense prologue used movement that anyone could do and developed its virtuosity through bold sequencing ploys: seemingly random actions that suddenly coalesced in flashes of unity or maybe even a single breath.

Taking its title and structural metaphor from chaos theory and, in particular, the relationship between moving, magnetic focal points and a turbulent field of particles, “Strange Attractors” tried to turn physics into physicality on Thursday in Royce Hall at UCLA. But, after that striking prelude, the evening’s creature comforts often got in the way.

For example, one section of this full-evening abstraction featured original music by Michael Nyman (played live), very compelling in its way. However, the dark, feverish emotionalism coming from the pit created expectations that the skillful but largely passionless dancing never delivered. Indeed, passages danced in silence between the parts of Nyman’s suite made their effect more impressively than those pulled one way by sight, another by sound.

The plodding rhythms in the rock finale (“Eye for an Eye”) composed by James Lavelle and Richard File also dragged the choreography down and although Petronio might have opted for merely juxtaposing the music and movement, a la Merce Cunningham, he leaned on the music all evening long in the way that Cunningham never does.

His choreography for the Nyman section, for instance, remained quasi-balletic in its foot placements and legwork: classical dancing (however barefoot and windblown) to classical music.

Beginning with a solo by Gerald Casel, the flow of motion never stopped and chaos theory asserted itself in sudden points of contact between dancers--an early duet for Ashleigh Leite and Todd Williams, a later one for Leite and Ana Gonzalez, plus an encounter between Shila Tirabassi and Gino Grenek that explored the partnering conventions of a romantic pas de deux.

In the Lavelle-File section, however, the shorter, punchier phrases of rock ‘n’ roll found their complement in a percussive style incorporating lots of shadowboxing moves and torso pulses.

Tanya Sarne’s black shorts and tops replaced the sleeker sleepwear she designed for the Nyman section, while shifting color washes on the backdrop provided a light show reflected in two enormous hanging silver orbs by sculptor Anish Kapoor.

Petronio anchored all this decoration with line formations, front to back, from which the dancers emerged for their nonstop particle-flow surges--more frenetic here, and also more frequently involving partnering gambits, including lifts.

For all his ingenuity and the excellence of the dancers, however, a certain numbness sometimes set in--rather like spending far too long in a video-game arcade. Endless flow interrupted only by the random appearance of magnetic focal points may or may not characterize particle physics, but dance can seem awfully generalized and bloodless when shackled to these conditions.

Also using science as metaphor, Sean Curran’s “Symbolic Logic,” at the Alex Theatre two months ago, proved infinitely sharper in both musicality and structural gamesmanship. If Petronio watchers can rejoice that “Strange Attractors” revealed a new maturity in an artist who specialized in violent provocations and self-indulgence not long ago, it also demonstrated a need for the moment-to-moment mastery that Curran displayed.

Among Petronio’s dancers, Jimena Paz generated magnetic force fields in isolated stillness a number of times, and Grenek capitalized on high extensions and spectacular buoyancy. Casel produced maximum torque with minimum effort and Tirabassi brought unexpected lyricism to Petronio’s style. The company also included Amanda Wells.

Ken Tabachnick designed the sophisticated lighting effects, Mathew Levi Damhave created the loose, black prologue costumes and members of the Michael Nyman Band also lent their expertise to the evening.