Dance flexes its muscle

DANCE in Southern California had its share of milestones in 2005.

Three contenders announced their intention to create world-class ballet companies in the Southland -- none more promising than Ethan Stiefel, the new artistic director of Ballet Pacifica.

The Dance at the Music Center series presented its first dauntingly expensive, top-of-the-line international ensemble: Russia’s superb Kirov Ballet.

And two television networks discovered how dance could serve the needs of reality TV through L.A.-based competitions -- “Dancing With the Stars” on ABC and “So You Think You Can Dance” on Fox.

Other notable developments: REDCAT in Walt Disney Concert Hall growing into a valuable showcase for contemporary and experimental dance, and sometimes rivaling the potent UCLA Live series. Moreover, visits by the Grand Kabuki of Japan, Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures company from England and the (Boris) Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg reaffirmed the power of narrative dance theater, old and new.

But artistically, the most dazzling achievements of the year arguably came from tap phenomenon Savion Glover, who achieved a double whammy with “Improvography” at the Kodak Theatre in March and “Classical Savion” at the Irvine Barclay Theatre in November, bracketing the year with greatness.

In past seasons, it seemed that Glover’s high-profile career was focused on breakthrough engagements: tapping in the White House, at the Oscars, for the Winter Olympics, on his own network TV special in the company of rock stars. At the Kodak and IBT, however, the breakthroughs involved intimate, intricate playoffs between technique and musicality: jazz in Hollywood, chamber classicism in Irvine.

Often facing the musicians and not the audience for a deeper connection to the prevailing instrumental impulse, Glover concentrated on what he calls becoming the music, fusing the sound of tap to the score with a combination of sweat, virtuosity, street smarts and something like fury.

The myth that tap must always look free and easy dies hard -- but Glover’s unrelenting emotional investment in his dancing made a lot of other tappers performing locally this year seem bloodless by comparison.

Fine dancing almost always starts with technical proficiency, but these days a lot of tap, ballet and even flamenco (which used to be less about steps than feeling) stays there, buying you off with bravura and never risking an exploration of the art’s deepest emotional resources.

Glover turned his back on all that, setting the bar (and barre) higher while taking tap to a whole new expressive plateau.

The biggest disappointment of the year came in August, when a virtually starless Bolshoi Ballet arrived at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. Over more than a decade, local audiences have grown accustomed to finding a new artistic director leading the company on each Bolshoi tour. But this stint featured a roster with fewer principal dancers than the company had ever brought to Southern California.

The undercasting -- especially in “Spartacus,” which used to be a showcase for the Bolshoi’s mightiest dancing actors -- recalled those ad hoc tours filled with Moscow has-beens and wannabes that wags retitled “Scars of the Bolshoi.” True, the company has given worse performances on local stages -- in “La Sylphide” more than a decade ago, for example -- but never has it looked more inconsequential.