A Relentless Drive to ‘Steal Time’

“Stealing time” is a term musicians use to describe the idea of flexibility in playing a phrase.

It’s also the name of the new work choreographer David Allan has created for Ballet Pacifica’s final program of the season, on Friday and Saturday at the Irvine Barclay Theatre.

“It’s what dancers do all their lives,” Allan said in a recent phone interview from his office at UC Irvine, where he has taught for five years.

“Ballet class steals your time. But when dancers dance, they don’t care that time is stolen if they’re real artists. And for people watching them, time is absorbed when they’re watching something wonderful.”

The new piece was commissioned by the Irvine-based company, as were the other three works on the program--Jamey Hampton’s “as, is us,” Rick McCullough’s “By Lamplight” and Robert Sund’s “Carmen.”

In Allan’s case, the music is a jazz score, drawn from Karl Jenkins’ disc “Imagined Oceans.”

“It’s music that can make dancers move and make an audience be moved by looking at that,” the choreographer said. “In places, I feel like I’m listening to a Bach cantata. In places, I feel like I’m listening to the finale of ‘Riverdance.’

“It has this relentless, unforgiving drive to it, which is how, sometimes, my work is described, in a good way. My work is said to be technically demanding.”

The work is in five movements and lasts nearly 20 minutes.

“It’s an abstract neoclassical, contemporary ballet,” Allan said. “There is a significant moment in the ballet for me. Michel Gervais, whom I’ve worked with for 15 years, is going to be retiring [from dance]. I’ve done a very significant solo for him.”

Although there are four couples in the work, Allan regards them as individuals. “It’s really a group ensemble in which everybody is featured in some way or another,” he said.

Allan began working with Ballet Pacifica in the 1994 summer choreographers project, an annual showcase for creating dances for the troupe.

At the time, he was in the middle of his association with California Riverside Ballet, where he was artistic director from 1991 to 1996.

He had been a principal with the National Ballet of Canada, for which he danced from 1974 until retiring in 1998 to pursue a career as a choreographer. He has more than 40 ballets to his credit, including several created for Ballet Pacifica.

The idea for the new piece came to him in March, when he was creating “Palladio” for the Conservartoire National de Paris. (The ballet was filmed for television and will be broadcast throughout France this fall.)

“The dancers in Paris said to me at one point, ‘You move fast.’ French dancers don’t like to move so fast. I said, ‘You’ve got to find time, feel time.’ So I started playing with this concept.

“When I work, I don’t come in and know exactly ‘right foot and left foot,’ ” he added. “But I know what I’m trying to feel and express.

“With certain phrases in the music, I ask, ‘Am I trying to express tenderness here, or a sense of clarity or a sense of eruption or that a crisis is going on?’ I tend to think of my work like that.”

Other questions he considers: “Is this person alone? Is this person aware that other people are looking at the work? What is it I’m trying to express?

“Then I look at the talent in front of me and then showcase the talent as best I can, whether it’s one beat of music or 20 minutes of music.”

He described the new work as “very multifaceted.”

“We go at a very fast pace, with a feeling of anxiety, into this crisis, then to an almost spiritual quality that leads us into an incredible aloneness.”

That brings the audience to Gervais’ solo.

“Out of that loneliness comes a sweet tenderness,” Allan said. “The finale is a wrap-up of everything you’ve seen. But you’re not seeing a single step from the other movements. I’m not a bring-it-back kind of guy. I never have been.”

* Ballet Pacifica will dance David Allan’s “Stealing Time” and works by three other choreographers at 8 p.m. Friday and at 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturday at the Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Road. $20 to $24. ($8 student/senior rush.) (949) 854-4646..