N.Y.’s Dorfman Troupe Pushes Boundaries in Local Debut

David Dorfman Dance is a New York-based company that was founded in 1985, but it looks as if it has been simmering since the 1960s, taking all the loose-limbed, flowing improvisation and pounding energy of a hazy afternoon rock concert and infusing it with enough architectural rigor and finely tuned technique to fit into the high-speed Internet Age.

The troupe’s first Southland appearance came courtesy of Cal State Long Beach, where Dorfman just finished a 21/2-week residency. From this short stay emerged a premiere, “Striking Distance (Keep Your Closeness),” which joined two pieces performed by company dancers at the Carpenter Center on Saturday night.

The students did well in their beautifully constructed and staged piece--which had a rumbling electronic score played live by Stephen Rush and composer Chris Peck.

But it was the company works, co-choreographed by the dancers, that really showed Dorfman’s talents at full strength.

“To Lie Tenderly” (2000) featured a masterful blending of short, evocative lines of text and fractured yet musically compelling movement phrases that owed much to the intimacy of contact improvisation and the graceful athleticism of capoeira.

Sudden, jittery punches and kicks were balanced by rhapsodic wheeling and sculptural puzzles. If you were to compare Dorfman’s style to ink on paper, you might say it’s a combination of elegant calligraphy and spontaneous doodling.

Composer Amy Denio’s score kept pace--a little punk edge, a rock ‘n’ roll backbone, a folky-sounding song the dancers sailed away on.

Heard on tape, Denio was seen occasionally in video clips, as was the occasional dancer; both were projected on the few minimalist surfaces of the set (by Paul Clay), which looked like a postmodern drive-in.

Standing out in a strong cast were Jeanine Durning, Joseph Poulson and Paul Matteson.

Less spoken text was used in “Subverse” (1999), which had the same fluid combination of unfettered yet sculpted movement.

At some moment, violence and cruel laughter arose, because all is not rhythmic invention in a Dorfman piece.

It’s more like a landscape that you get exhausted trying to take in but never doubt it’s worth the trip.