A debut that moves in fits and starts

Though trying to start a ballet troupe in this town may be a Sisyphean task, Omhmar Griffin hopes to make his mark as founder-artistic director of Los Angeles Modern and Ballet Company. In its sparsely attended inaugural concert at the El Portal Theater on Thursday, the boulder, unfortunately, got the better of LAMBCO.

Besides beginning 35 minutes late, the four-piece program was beset by technical glitches, including bungled light and sound cues. That said, the six members of the troupe comported themselves with spirit, although Griffin, whose credits include performing with Washington Ballet and touring with Whitney Houston, proved a better dancer than dance-maker.

Happily, the work of Robert Gilliam, LAMBCO’s resident choreographer, prevented the night from being a wash. His exhilarating 20-minute premiere, “Graffiti,” set to a collage of hard-driving rhythm tracks, offered polish, wit and dynamite moves. It opened ferociously with a female trio -- guest artists Kim Borgaro, Michelle Hall and Jackie Heard -- whose crotch-grabbing, shoulder-shrugging antics gave it the whiff of a rave.

A silky dance with two air puppets developed into a meticulous solo for Borgaro, whose tapestry of jagged, robot-like moves thrilled. Humor came with five white-clad “mammies,” their do-rags and extra-large butts wagging wildly, while the energized finale featured six dancers in Olympian mode, bursting across the stage in varying combinations.

Griffin’s “When Night Falls” (2004), accompanied by a Bach Brandenburg concerto, was punctuated with awkward transitions accommodating unnecessary costume changes (the men shed puffy-sleeved shirts for the slow movement, donning them again for the final vivace). The five dancers -- Elaine Rensing, Johanna Sityar, Khilea Douglass, Melvin Clark III and Griffin -- worked hard at leaps, pirouettes and minuet-style steps, but the choreography lacked cohesion.

Griffin’s 2004 “Love Songs” had a nightclub-set scenario making use of several Burt Bacharach tunes, with constant prop-arranging a distraction from the empty jazz-like choreography. Sityar was more interested in the laptop she held than in Clark; Douglass, a stunner whose jaw-dropping splits mesmerized, fawned over an abusive Eliezer de Costro Rabello. What we ultimately had was not only a failure to communicate but also a failure to captivate.

Completing the program, Douglass danced Gilliam’s previously reviewed 2000 solo “Endangered Species” and was an exotic bird. Both fierce and fragile, she flapped and fluttered beautifully, only to take her bow in the dark of a botched curtain call.

Alas, Griffin, at this point, is also a bit in the dark about what it takes to get a company aloft in Los Angeles.

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Los Angeles Modern and Ballet Company

Where: El Portal Theater, 5269 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood

When: 8 p.m. today

Price: $17.50 to $35

Contact: (323) 731-1675