The ‘everyday’ movements of life, reinterpreted

Revisiting dance from the 1960s has its downside, as was evidenced when the 1964 Rudy Perez work “Countdown” was performed by Victor Quijada on Friday night at the Electric Lodge in Venice.

He not only filled the audience with admiration for his brooding portrait of a seated film noir-type hero reaching for a cigarette, but he also filled the room with smoke. For Californians unused to being in stuffy spaces with lighted cigarettes, it was tough to stay in the moment as firmly as Quijada did.

Coughing and waving of programs aside, “Countdown” looked spectacular: a tiny gem from a long career in dance celebrated with the 52-minute program, “Rudy Perez: Past and Present: 25 Years in Los Angeles.” His latest work, “Sphinx,” for his four-person ensemble, also dealt with carefully measured “everyday” movement: tugging at T-shirts, walking and “surfing.” With its ambling and playtime-sounding score by Jeremy Gilien, “Sphinx” looked like Mr. Rogers meets early dance postmodernism. The performers’ mostly blank expressions gave the non-sequitur movements an automaton feeling.

An inward gaze also marked two works from ensemble members. In Stefan Fabry’s “Schoeneekligenachbarn,” he and Larry Hosterman performed enigmatic tasks as if in a dream -- jogging in place, reading, jumping, rolling and moving bags around. Anne and Jeffrey Grimaldo’s “Abdomen Soft and Flat” suggested a tango performed by puppets.

Quijada, a former student of Perez’s, offered more virtuosic, “dancier” choreography. In his solo “Exercise in Wholeness and Awareness,” ballet, capoeira, hip-hop and yoga were molded into a compelling sequence.