Moments of Charm, Passion Enliven Second Kaleidoscope Bill

A world of artistry separates choreographers most at home in the studio--whose work always looks its best in an unfinished state, at close range or in the mirror--and those who belong to the theater, body and soul. The nine-part Saturday edition of Dance Kaleidoscope at Cal State L.A. provided an object lesson on the subject, with too many drab workshop-level etudes calling into question the issue of quality control for the entire annual series.

But before recommending that Kaleidoscope cede future programming decisions to whoever put together the more impressive COLA (City of Los Angeles) fellowship series at the L.A. Theatre Center recently, let’s celebrate the few unmitigated Kaleido-triumphs on view at the Luckman Theater. Start with Marie de la Palme, winding herself into balletic and gymnastic dependence on two overhanging bolts of crimson fabric in “Le Coeur Illumine” with a brilliant sense of theatricality and movement design.

Or “To go, please,” a charming, inventive contact improvisation duet by Stefan Fabry and Shel Wagner, less notable for the few inevitable moments of their rolling off one another’s shoulders than its sly action plan: Fabry as a self-absorbed postmodern soloist increasingly bedeviled by Wagner’s freewheeling physicality.

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Big themes overwhelmed lots of choreographers this weekend, but despite less-than-ideal casting, Cindera Che made her trio “*MA” into a potent, disarmingly simple realization of a difficult concept: the interaction of a dead mother and her angry surviving son.

Soloists can get lost on the big Luckman stage, and perhaps none has ever looked so alone as Robin Prichard, pointlessly marooned near the back wall and making hopelessly tiny movement statements during much of her formalist environmental portrait “When Sandstone Sings.” In contrast, Aida Amirkhanian performed her whimsical “La Donna” right on the forestage, and it helped, but this gestural theater piece had no choreographic content or interest.

The solo life-cycle “Sin Zapatos,” choreographed by Anne Goodman and Jeffrey Grimaldo (a.k.a. Naked With Shoes), started with spectacular shoulder isolations by Grimaldo as an embryo taking shape in the womb. But everything went downhill after birth, with the ages of man rather doggedly depicted, though the deliberately grotesque and even lumpen body language did help avoid cuteness and sentimentality.

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Somewhere in the midst of these earnest but often murky pieces about God, the rotation of the Earth, the indomitability of women and the meaning of life, young Swetha Bharadvaj performed “Tarangam,” an invocation to the Hindu god Krishna, in a style of dance (Kuchipudi) dating back to 14th century India.

Beyond the pleasure of Bharadvaj’s deft execution, the sweet, shimmering antique vision she created reminded everyone that the most profound themes can be danced lightly, joyously and fill the eye as well as the mind.

Of the ensemble efforts Saturday, Ballet Folklorico del Pacifico suffered from flat corps dancing and desultory acting in its Mexican folk suite “Boda en Xicontepec,” credited to Jose Vences and Adriana Astorga Gainey with the assistance of Don Bondi.

Finally, an excerpt from Laura Gorenstein Miller’s full-evening “About Anne: A Diary in Dance” turned the plight of Holocaust victim Anne Frank into an exercise in costume manipulation--Anne and her family tangled up in their own sleeves. Wildly overwrought emoting from the six-member Helios Dance Theater cast attempted to compensate for the coldly inexpressive choreography but with only fitful success.