Uneven vision of the American zeitgeist

The series titled “Split: Dance In and Out of L.A.” took a major step backward in its fifth edition at the Ivar Theatre on Saturday. Formerly a professional showcase, however uneven, it looked this time like an under-rehearsed workshop, however promising.

Bad decisions prevailed. Stefan Wenta derailed his ambitious, downbeat new “Fantasy a la Mazurka” by periodically replacing his somber choreography for adult dancers with cutesy-poo exercises by the kiddies in his ballet classes, as if anybody except the children’s blood relatives would care.

Deborah Brockus undercut the invention and coherence of her moody new ensemble piece “As Memory Slips to Whisper” with taped music that had a way of suddenly running out -- or radically switching gears -- in the worst possible places.

Nearly all the choreographers on the overloaded, 11-part program demanded intricate and often gymnastic partnering to convey the core issues of their pieces -- but sent their dancers onstage looking ragged and sometimes desperate in these crucial passages.

Nobody fell apart more painfully from effortful or even ruinous partnering than Island Moving Company of Rhode Island, the “Out of L.A.” ensemble on this “Split” bill. Miki Ohlsen’s neoclassical 2003 dance drama “Surrender” suffered most, but the anguished ballroom interplay of Eva Marie Pacheco’s “Je Ne Regrette Rien” (another 2003 study of relationships on the rocks) also looked underpowered.

Only the brief duets in Ryan Kelly’s new apocalyptic social panorama “Second Skin” held together and helped Island Moving Company secure its reputation for fusing conceptual risk with technical prowess.

With the Wenta Ballet and the Brockus Project Dance Company below par, the excitement and creative edge of local choreography could be glimpsed most often Saturday in short, elliptical new pieces by Kitty McNamee’s Hysterica Dance Company. True, MacNamee’s exotic work-in-progress “Landscape” looked mannered and even pointless. But she recouped with the velocity, detail and raw force of her rock showpiece “Crunchy.”

McNamee’s “Why, Why, Why” found Lisa K. Lock expertly reflecting the extremes of speed and pressure of an assaultive sound-score, while Lock’s own “Dark Blue” solo confirmed her ability to execute spectacular contortions on pointe.

Finally, the performances of Nina McNeely and Sal Vassallo in McNamee’s intense duet “Let Me In” showed this “Split” audience exactly what high-risk professional partnering should look like.

Had the dancing been more reliable, the program might have added up to a compelling survey of the current American zeitgeist, with McNamee, Ryan, Wenta and Brockus all focused on visions of war, social instability and/or the disintegration of old norms. But dance is a skill before it’s an art and, in this regard, “Split #5” just wasn’t ready to open Saturday.