‘IF’ Showcases Female Power, Agility in Works at LACE

While many dance aficionados were downtown watching the Joffrey Ballet on Thursday night, a perhaps harder core audience was cheering a group of contemporary dancers and choreographers as they flexed their mostly female muscles at LACE in Hollywood.

“IF,� an evening of eight premieres and one previously seen work, generated much creative heat, beginning with Phyllis Douglass’ Bridge Dance Theatre. “Fences,� a riveting work in progress that chronicles urban angst, saw a quartet of powerful dancers--choreographer Douglass, Maia Heiss, Reba Mehan and Robin Ziemer--executing martial arts-like moves with diving push-ups, captured live by Clyde Howell on video shot through fencing material.

Food ruled in Lisa Townsend’s effective “Apple of Discord,� where Townsend spasmodically attempted to reach the hanging biblical fruit, and in her “Neither Blue Most Both,� a duet with Tomas Tamayo in which the couple displayed amazing balancing feats with eggs. Eggs proved less successful in Liz Maxwell’s “Walking on Walls,� where Tamayo, Gina Dominguez, Alena Cawthorne and Jesse Carlota Kile veered from circus moves to “musical stools� while enacting Dr. Seuss’ Horton hatching his mythic egg. Maxwell’s “Torn� was also unfocused: Torn paper squares provided scenery and sound, as a quartet of dancers slid, tossed and meditated upon them.

Ziemer, muscularly statuesque, performed her awesome solo, “Snake River Angel,� with yoga postures predominating. Monica Favand’s “Wasteland,� a bleak tableau of isolation, featured strong performances by Roger Fojas, Eun Jong Kim and Jim Rizza. Townsend’s “TurnAround,� the program’s coda, found various dancers casually aping one another’s moves; it was cute but not much more.

* “IF� repeats tonight at 8 at LACE, 6522 Hollywood Blvd., $12. (213) 957-1777.