Exotic nostalgia for the days of Persia

The plight of the artist in exile lent a special resonance to an otherwise largely dated and kitsch-laden program by Nima Kiann’s Les Ballets Persans at the Aratani/Japan America Theatre on Friday.

Two years ago, dancer-choreographer Kiann formed an ensemble in Sweden that attempted to re-create the hybrid style of the Iranian National Ballet, a company that existed in Tehran from 1967 to 1979.

Extended video excerpts from the inaugural Swedish performances displayed to the Friday audience Kiann’s taste for large-scale dance drama and for cramming showpiece steps into every scene, whether motivated or not.

Most of the live dance segments also enforced technical overkill, forcing a handful of locally recruited soloists into a style that superimposed a Persian upper body (sinuous torso, airy and delicate arms) onto a Franco-Russian lower body (hard-edged classical steps, sharply defined linear positions).

Early in the 20th century, a number of major ballet choreographers exploited this style, and Friday’s performance included one example: a pas de deux from Mikhail Fokine’s vintage “Scheherazade.” Effortfully executed, it at least represented a genuine historical relic.

However, Kiann’s own sense of perfumed exoticism and balleticized folklore in such repertory as the woman’s solo “Simay Jan” and the ensemble piece “Papou-Soleimani” simply looked outmoded, the kind of throwback that would interest only those who shared his nostalgia for pre-revolutionary Iran.

Fresher and more focused choreographically, his evocation of Sufi ritual in “Divine Banquet” supplemented the live dancing with video images of a version with a much bigger cast.

But Les Ballets Persans’ greatest claim to distinction came in “Femme,” Kiann’s five-part, 22-minute dance drama in which the commanding David Havhannisyan subjugated the limpid Hazmik Amirian-Bennett by repeatedly forcing her to wear a shroud-like body veil.

Obviously, the impact of this subject on anyone of Middle Eastern origin would be strong -- but Kiann made it powerful for others too by using the veil as a symbol not just of Muslim traditions but also of men’s attempts to constrain and control women everywhere.

In “Leila,” Kiann offered another duet that tried to use Western ballet technique with this same expressive sensitivity. And in “Keveh the Blacksmith,” he again sought to make storytelling hold profound socio-political implications. But the former looked sketchy and devitalized, the latter absurdly melodramatic. No, on Friday, only “Femme” pointed the way toward Kiann’s emergence as a skilled, purposeful artist in the non-Iranian contemporary dance world.

Besides Kiann’s segments, the program included a number of songs performed by Zohreh Jooya, an artist with a wide vocal range and tasteful expressive instincts.

However, with the program lasting nearly three hours, fewer songs, video clips and prolonged blackouts should have been considered.

Besides those previously mentioned, the dancers included Dayse Tarakdian, Sayat Asatryan, Sherene Melania and Kiann himself.