Tour De Force ‘Orlando’ Conveys Potent Theme

Performance artist Licia Perea may not yet have the skills to match her ambitions, but her hourlong solo “Orlando of the Thousand Years” succeeded as an act of heroism in a two-part C.O.L.A. (City of Los Angeles) Performing Arts program at the L.A. Theatre Center on Friday.

Based on the novel by Virginia Woolf, “Orlando” asked Perea to act and dance the roles of two women, two men and figures who existed in pre-sexual and omnisexual states. Moreover, this six-part tour de force conveyed a potent theme: questioning societal assumptions about gender and, in particular, a power structure based on male dominance.

Not since Leonid Yakobson created the solo “Vestris” for the young Baryshnikov or Molissa Fenley danced all of Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” as a solo have the technical and expressive stakes been this high--and Perea faced the challenge energetically, shinnying down a rope from a high, hanging net cocoon to begin a series of transformations that put everything she knew and believed about dance-theater on the line.

Unfortunately, too much of “Orlando” remained flatly spoken in a tone-deaf contemporary American manner at odds with the historical periods being depicted and the quasi-folkloric style of Perea’s dances. And those dances, too, could have been sharper and more purposeful.

But her comments on gender issues proved cogent, and the performance as a whole evolved deftly from one generational and spatial context to another--with direction by Jose G. Garcia and set units by Alicia Hoge and Jason Adams. Best of all, “Orlando” represents a project Perea can grow into: a worthy test of her mettle that she should periodically revisit as her career develops.

In contrast, Dulce Capadocia’s C.O.L.A. project on Friday (on another stage in the Theatre Center) seemed essentially transitional: an attempt to deal with the very recent death of her mother, Ascuncion “Sonia” Capadocia, after a long hospitalization.

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Part tribute, part therapy, “Mother Night” used members of the Silayan Dance Company, extensive video sequences and an overload of sentimental ballads to evoke the pain of losing a mother but grew focused and involving as dance drama only in the solos conveying Dulce Capadocia’s intense anguish and anger.

Elsewhere, the piece ricocheted between dogged documentary (with Cisa Payuyo playing the stricken mother) and uninspired mythology (with Michelle Broussard playing a maternal guiding spirit) using the heartfelt sincerity and skills of the participants to frame Capadocia’s grief.

An onstage company warmup at the beginning suggested that Capadocia intended the work to be seen as a dance event rather than a private act of mourning. But the sense of audience voyeurism loomed large--especially when close-ups of Ascuncion Capadocia on life support filled the projection screen. And it didn’t help that amateur photographers in the house took flash snapshots throughout the performance.

* Sponsored by the City Department of Cultural Affairs, the C.O.L.A. series continues on Friday and Saturday with Jacques Heim’s Diavolo Dance Theater at 8 p.m. and solo performer Dan Froot at 9 p.m. in the L.A. Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring St., downtown. $10. (213) 485-1681.