AVAZ IS ANTICIPATING ITS ‘FIRST REAL SEASON’

Don’t expect the world from Avaz International Dance Theatre. Other ethnic dance companies may visit five continents before intermission, but Avaz usually spends the entire evening in the Balkan peninsula and the Aryan plateau.

Instead of broadening its horizons, this Los Angeles-based ensemble chooses rather to deepen its insight into traditional music and dance of the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe.

Now approaching its ninth year, Avaz is putting down deep roots in more ways than one: In its busiest season to date, the company will still confine touring to California. Administrative support is growing, but new repertory continues to address the company’s well-defined area of specialization.

In the company’s program on June 21 at the Japan America Theatre, for example, the cultures of Egypt, Bulgaria, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Bosnia, Croatia, Greece and Thrace (an area which now spills across the borders of Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey) will be represented. The program will also feature a number of dances from Hungary, performed by both Avaz and the locally based Karpatok Hungarian Folk Ensemble.

Avaz occasionally may venture into Tennessee and the Carolinas, but founding artistic director Anthony Shay keeps a tight rein on the company’s wanderlust.

“Decisions about what not to dance are very important.” he says. “One questionable work makes all your material suspect. The cardinal rule is to be utterly believable.”

Sometimes believability is a question of appearance. “We can look Croatian,” he says, “and with dark wigs we can look Iranian, but we simply cannot look Japanese.”

Shay believes some dance forms demand a kind of single-minded devotion that makes them inaccessible to a company like his. Avaz won’t even attempt a farruca or an Indian dance-drama, for instance. He insists, “Flamenco or kathak --that’s your life.”

Shay’s 30-year involvement with folk dance attests to his devotion. He holds master’s degrees in folklore and mythology and in anthropology, and Avaz reflects his devotion to his subject. Founded nine years ago when he broke off from the Aman Folk Ensemble (which he co-founded 14 years earlier), the company takes a meticulous approach to its material.

The process includes extensive research into folkways, guest teachers from major state ensembles touring the United States, and even a few scholarships for study overseas. Avaz singers study Farsi, Azerbaijani, Turkish, Armenian, Ladino, Yiddish, Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian, Arabic, Hungarian, Romanian and Greek.

At a typical rehearsal, one dance group works on the light-footed new Thracian dance while another practices Egyptian cane-twirling in the far corner. A chorus rehearses the new Hungarian song while strains of a tamburitza orchestra drift in from the next room. Year-round the company rehearses two nights a week and at least one full day a month.

Avaz’s professionalism is evident in concert, but according to Shay, the administration of the 65-member group has lagged woefully. This year he is instituting major changes. For 1986-87, the company has secured its first major funding: five grants in all. One provides for a booking agent shared with a “management cluster” of two other companies. Another provides for an Avaz record album.

Signed up for the California Arts Council touring program, the company is looking forward to what Shay calls “our first real season. It’s the first time I can see more than two months ahead. We’ve got signed contracts for 10 engagements with residencies all over the state. We’ll double our revenue and have our first real budget.”

Some of that money is already earmarked for the performers. Avaz recently began paying musicians and Shay plans in the coming season to provide honorariums for dancers. In a move designed to “give artists a chance to grow,” he has also instituted rankings: ensemble, soloist and principal.

The company also is placing increasing emphasis on networking: Last fall, Avaz hosted the first Conference of Performing Folk and Ethnic Companies, which brought to Los Angeles delegates from 20 groups in the United States and Canada.

Conferees met for three days of workshops, panels, performances and informal exchanges that paved the way for the Assn. of Performing Folk Dance Companies, a national organization with international ambitions.

Avaz formed its association with Karpatok last fall, sharing some repertory, resources and musicians, besides planning the joint concert for June 21.

Why all the outreach? “Advocacy for the art form,” Shay explains, citing the need for a grapevine on grants and bookings and more avenues for audience development.

“Recognition of folk art is new,” he says, “and now people in Mission Viejo are interested in things you couldn’t sell them 15 years ago.”

Does this new audience need to be spoon-fed? Shay doesn’t think so: “They see PBS specials. They know where Iran is. People are much more knowledgeable than they were in the ‘50s, and you can’t play down to them.”

Reverence for the material and respect for the audience notwithstanding, he believes there’s a limit to authenticity: “We give audiences a general introduction to the work,” he notes, “but they don’t need to follow every word. Some of these songs don’t even lose in the translation, they lose in the original.”

“It’s like opera--sometimes it sounds a lot better if you don’t know what they’re saying.”