Pacifico strides past uneven style shifts

Imitating the great international world-dance ensembles was the founding mission or game plan of such regional U.S. troupes as Adriana Gainey’s locally based Pacifico Dance Company.

On an eight-part program Saturday at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre, you could still see traces of Gainey’s initial obsession with the creative approach and specific choreographies belonging to Amalia Hernandez’s pioneering Ballet Folklorico de Mexico. The “Iguana” sequence in Gainey’s suite from the state of Guerrero seemed especially in Hernandez’s debt, as did much of the company’s Jalisco finale.

However, at some point in Pacifico’s 13-year history, Gainey joined the second generation of U.S. folkloric choreographers, developing her own perspective on Mexican culture and giving her company its own artistic identity. Narrative interests her, and on Saturday she explored it in a number of pieces -- none more persuasive than “La Llorona,” in which she and Don Bondi combined dances from Oaxaca with a ghost story involving romance, betrayal and revenge.

Unfortunately, “Salon Mexico” (credited to Gainey, Bondi and Jordi Caballero) ricocheted from one style to another, ending as a labored show-dance pastiche, and leaving some of the company’s best performers looking woefully tentative.

No such insufficiency tainted the percussive “Concheros” sequence, the high-velocity men’s machete dances from Nayarit or the women’s dances from the same region which made vibrant skirt-swirling in deep backbend look absolutely effortless. Although its major soloists are often more amiable than exciting, the company as a whole is attractive, disciplined, spirited and often stylish -- qualities that sustained even the weakest moments in an ambitious, uneven suite from Chihuahua.

Gainey’s tendency to edit repetitions out of traditional folk choreography and have the dancing flow through as many step-sequences as possible undermined the religious dances here. To make its effect, ritual needs more time than she and co-choreographer Karen McDonald allowed, more of a sense of ceremonial structure than the blur of bodies provided.

Gainey also sometimes costumed traditional Mexican dances in lightweight synthetic fabrics that looked garish and lacked the weight the movement required. Swirling a full skirt over petticoats simply looks different -- and more impressive -- than swishing some thin, satiny facsimile back and forth.

Gainey’s lapses seem especially regrettable at a time when a number of Southland choreographers belong to the third generation of folkloric performers: developing concepts from their mother cultures in ways unique to the conditions and opportunities in the U.S. For all her dedication, she’ll never celebrate Mexico better than Mexicans can -- but Mexican American culture, Latino L.A., what a fertile ground that offers to an imaginative, in-touch dance artist.

The Saturday program also featured fine performances by vocalist Iyxa Herrera, drummer Julio Valpuesta and the string group Los Hermanos Herrera.