From Mexico, a Reverie in Movement

There was a strong sense of dreaming while dancing in two 45-minute works presented by two Mexican modern dance companies making their Southern California debuts Friday night at California Plaza downtown. Perhaps it was the liberal use of slow-motion movement or the way each piece followed an episodic score so closely. The result was small, stylish movement essays that followed one another in a meandering fashion.

For Contradanza, a reverie-like drifting of limbs seemed a natural choice for director-choreographer Cecilia Appleton’s “Camas Con Historias” (Beds With Stories). Five dancers wore bits of white sleepwear that was sometimes just underwear, increasing their vulnerability as they became involved in private moments or intimate exchanges. Activity revolved around a mobile foam mattress, which they crawled over, fell onto, manipulated, caressed and--once it was on a frame--hid under, all without the kind of movement you would normally do around a bed.

At times there was an interesting construction of the spectators’ angle of vision: We appeared to be above a lone man with his crossed legs propped against the upended mattress at one point, and, at another, we witnessed from behind a seated couple wrestling fitfully on the bed. Focus often shifted to new pairings or a solo of breakaway restlessness.

A series of songs by Meredith Monk (music was not credited on the program) spurred changes of mood: To percolating rhythms and polyrhythmic whispers, feet scrambled and legs got kicky; to a wordlessly sung lullaby, a couple struggled with sharing weight and balance.

While personal anxieties played out on an intimate scale in Appleton’s piece, Contempodanza, also based in Mexico City, used broader strokes and more stretched, formal postures in “Espejo de Linces” (Lynx’s Mirror). Choreographer and troupe director Cecilia Lugo was inspired by Oscar Oliva’s poem about the 1994 Zapatista uprising in Chiapas. The dynamic commissioned score, by Joaquin Lopez Chapman, included bits of that text, but no translation or indication of Oliva’s themes was provided.

The bodies told a story of sculptural wariness, defiance and exhaustion. But crouching and rising were always elegant, as were steely, rippling arms and animal-like arching. Again, slow motion reigned.

The rippling of a giant purple cloth in one section represented dangerous territory to cross, bringing to mind the silken “river” of Cloud Gate’s famous “Crossing the Black Water” by Lin Hwai-min, or the billowing silk cloud in Jii Kylian’s “Petite Mort.” But Contempodanza’s stylish black costumes and sometimes showy articulations of hips and shoulders seemed to call attention more to the dancers’ dramatic bodies than to the subject matter.

A short, unannounced opening piece by Contempodanza was less ambitious but perhaps more trenchant in matching movement to mood. In “Nicolasa,” to Arturo Marquez’s Danzon #2, three women wearing slinky red dresses showed niftily how to keep amused with rhythm and style when no partners have shown up.

It’s possible that the open spaces of California Plaza mitigate against long pieces that depend on establishing an atmosphere over quiet stretches of time. Then again, the moods seemed to appeal to the vocal audience that supported these representatives of a strong modern dance scene in Mexico City, and a fleshing out of Mexican talents in Los Angeles.