Adding Body Language to Classical Dance

Every visit by Gloria Contreras’ Mexico City chamber ensemble, Taller Coreografico de la UNAM, reveals new facets of a remarkably sophisticated concept of classical dance. Here is ballet choreography that emphasizes body sculpture as much as steps, that uses kneeling-sitting-reclining positions on the floor with the freedom of modern dance and that remains resolutely spiritual in its aesthetic.

At the Watercourt in California Plaza on Thursday, Taller’s six-part program may have lacked the starpower of previous local engagements but sustained interest through its versatile, hard-working ensemble and the contrasting styles on view.

An unusually footloose Contreras emerged in the sextet “Danzon Num. 2” (2000), in which the dancers’ warmth and charm camouflaged the challenge of linking a sensual, hip-rolling social-dance idiom to flashy, pulled-up classical jumps and other technical fireworks. Elegant, contemporary and very intricately wedded to its Arturo Marquez score, the ballet created the illusion of people dancing for their own pleasure.

In “Mozart’s Requiem” (1993), however, the dancers remained instruments of a noble design, idealized figures in gleaming unitards of silver or gold who formed restless moving friezes expressing the feverish emotionalism of the music yet always reinforcing its purity of form. An intense solo by Alejandra Llorente near the end coupled academic pointe work with images of the body pulled in on itself yet eventually reaching out in grief and need. Her transformation ended with a group of men holding her high above them as if she were a sacred icon.

Transformation also dominated “Credo” (1995), a solo to Bach in which the agonized Alberto Torrero became increasingly identified with images of the crucified Christ. But even when Contreras avoided the specific Christian symbolism of “Requiem” and “Credo,” her serious works Thursday reinforced a sense of spirituality--as in “Crisol,” her newest creation, set to music by Anton Webern.

In a superbly supple, technically refined performance, Marcela Correa and Eduardo Ruelas took familiar hallmarks of the lyric pas de deux beyond mere romantic fervor into a realm of deep metaphysical communion, each partnering support a pledge of faith.

Two vintage works to music by Jose Pablo Moncayo set the seal on the evening’s excellence. Contreras’ familiar ensemble showpiece “Huapango” (1958) once again repackaged the vibrancy of Mexican folk culture as a buoyant neoclassic divertissement.

Guillermo Arriaga’s dance drama “Zapata” (1953) extracted archetypes from that same folk culture, celebrating the resilience and courage of the downtrodden.

Persuasively danced by Humberto Becerra and Rosario Contreras, it reflected the influence of Mexican painter Jose Clemente Orozco and, as such, developed some of the same images of indomitable solidarity as the “Orozco” section of “Dedications in Our Time,” a duet from the same year by Los Angeles-based modern dance pioneer Lester Horton.

Thus, by sharing their country’s rich dance legacy on Thursday, Taller Coreografico managed to forge surprising links to our own.

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Taller Coreografico de la UNAM performs tonight at 8 in the Watercourt of California Plaza, 300-350 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. Free. (213) 687-2159.