Rhythms Crackle in This ‘Quiet/Fire’

A mountain of drums on the stage of the Watercourt in California Plaza on Saturday restricted dancer-choreographer Parijat Desai to a narrow margin of forestage. But instead of using adjacent areas for dance, she simply lined up her company in front of the drums and turned her work into flat, static studies of dancing in place.

A pity, since her new collaboration with composer-percussionist Kenny Endo matched thematic relevance with technical sophistication. And Endo, at least, had plenty of space for his ensemble.

Their “Quiet/Fire” incorporated a number of influences: a text by Thich Nhat Hanh, Japanese taiko drumming, Kabuki theater music, jazz, classical Indian traditions, martial arts, gymnastics and modern dance. Starting with an invocation trio in which the dancers’ prayers flew upward as hands pressed together suddenly opened to the skies, the half-hour suite focused on the need to restrain violence through compassion.

Earlier in the program, Desai’s trio “Rewired” and the solo piece “Padam” cleverly juxtaposed idioms to physicalize the complexity (and humor) of multiculturalism: trying to combine the priorities of radically different people and lifestyles.

By contrast, Desai’s approach to “Quiet/Fire” involved seeking commonality rather than dramatizing difference. In the words of Hanh’s text (read by the Rev. Winnie Varghese), “Man is not our enemy.” Endo’s music complemented her choreography with rich rhythms and textures--though sometimes the dancers’ ankle bells added nothing but messy clatter.

Working without the dancers, Endo presented three pieces that used the atmospheric woodwind playing of Masakazu Yoshizawa to punctuate passages evoking Brazilian samba (“Spirit of Rice”), a Kodo assault on the so-called demon drum (“Clarity”) and an intercultural jam session shimmering with the vibraphone dexterity of Brad Dutz (“Jugoya”).

Endo’s other musicians Saturday were Kevin Higa and Bryan Yamami. Besides Desai, the dancers included Cindy Chung, Aditi Dhruv, Sharanya Mukhopadhyay and Anjali Tata.