State Street Ballet’s Dancers Got That Swing

Many people don’t expect a lot from ballet--just line, form and mild-mannered but lively musicality--and this is what State Street Ballet succeeded in bringing Saturday night to Cal State L.A.’s Luckman Fine Arts Complex, with their “Ballroom: A Salute to the Swing Era.”

The Santa Barbara-based company has steadily accumulated dancers with strong technical and lyrical skills and seems to specialize in bright, virtuosic, people-pleasing ballets. Its swing-era salute was also a tribute to beautifully placed curves and far-flung limbs that often came to rest in dramatic lighting (by Lloyd Sobel).

In William Soleau’s “Five by Gershwin,” the intended breezy romanticism was seriously curtailed by awkwardly styled, unflattering costumes; whereas a certain amount of balletic tango got off the ground in his “Nuevo Tango.” In both pieces, performers wove in and out of couple dances, with the women always on pointe and uplifted elegance always on display. “Alley Cat,” artistic director Rodney Gustafson’s detective solo (or was it for a criminal?) gave full rein to Chauncey Hildestad’s razor-sharp, feather-soft virtuosity (until a slight injury midway muted the ending).

Throughout the program, no contemporary perspective on the lush, often naive--and even colonial--music of another time and place emerged, nor did any choreographic innovations catch at the heart or stimulate the brain. But several dancers with appealing dynamics and personalities often caught the eye, especially Jennifer Batbouta, Jean Sayeg and Olga Tcheckachova, all of whom showed striking skill and attitude in Robert Sund’s “B.A.N.D.,” as well as in the tango piece.

In this way, whenever the evening relied too much on blithely sailing the well-worn surface of swing-era optimism, talented performers revived the mood by dancing up a storm.