Once a Master Ensemble, Now a Jack of All Trades

For anyone waiting for a big comeback from Aman, the veteran folk ensemble that has fallen on financial and aesthetic hard times, Sunday night’s program at the Ford Amphitheatre did not end the vigil. It was a scattershot, fairly tepid fare, sparsely attended and danced by the company’s six members and several guests. In Aman’s heyday a few decades ago, audiences flocked to see dozens of performers do an eclectic range of dances from around the world.

The key phrase here may be “a few decades ago.” With an increasing number of expert local dancers based in many traditions now in residence in the Los Angeles area, plus the constantly touring companies that bring the world’s best into town, perhaps the time of the cultural sampler attempted by one group is over. Certainly the onstage musicians, who sailed through down-home Appalachian tunes and Greek or klezmer interludes but floundered when asked to become an African or classical Indian ensemble, can sense a problem here.

The smorgasbord approach wasn’t at all aided by Aman’s use of a narrator who mouthed banalities about cultural diversity in the tones of an aspiring spokes-model nor by the putative theme “Remade in America.” This was a vague enough concept when it was first called “The Immigrants” a few years ago (some revisions have been made, but this program is very similar to the one seen at the Alex Theatre in Glendale in October 1999).

Yes, there are generations of immigrants here who straddle cultures and relate to dance and music in complex ways, but what’s the particular point here? Aman bounced blithely from the theatricalized folk tradition of Moiseyev (“Armenian Dance,” “Bottle Dance,” “Russian Spoon Dance,” etc.) to a South African gumboot dance, to a South Asian folk-classical romp, to salsa, to a clogging-tap-dancing finale.

Occasionally, dancers seemed on solid ground during some flashy turns: Youri Nelzine and Lilia Babenko in “Russian Spoon Dance”; Gary Larsen’s dynamite footwork in “Dances of Rhythm”; and a “Salsa/Mambo” celebration of gloriously rolling torsos and hips by Seaon Bristol, Joel Massacott and Lesley Washington.

Then there were all the moments of dancers trying to “get” a tradition, stepping into unfamiliar gumboots or doing a gloss on bharata natyam style while a musician tries to make a guitar sound like a sitar. It’s time for artistic director Rosina Didyk to rethink what Aman International Dance and Music can do really well.