MODERN DANCER MAKES NO BONES ABOUT HIS VIEWS

SAN DIEGO —  In November, when ex-Martha Graham principal Tim Wengerd was preparing a solo concert of his own work for a San Diego debut, the internationally acclaimed dancer said:

“I’m not ready to work with anyone else, because I haven’t done enough exploration on my own body. All the time I spent working with Martha Graham, I was using a very limited part of me. In my own work, I wanted to capture those parts of me that I never had a chance to express.”

Now it appears Wengerd has come full circle as a choreographer.

“I guess so,” Wengerd acknowledged as he prepared for his six performances at Sushi this weekend (tonight through Sunday at 8 p.m., with additional 10 p.m. performances Friday and Saturday). Wengerd will work with 22 dancers (both home-grown and visiting artists) in the local premiere of his latest creation, “The Bone Cantata.”

“What happened was I was asked to teach at the University of New Mexico, and one of my duties was to make a piece for an unknown number of dancers with an unknown amount of experience,” Wengerd said while conducting a rehearsal in record-breaking temperatures at Sushi’s second-story gallery.

“ ‘The Bone Cantata’ was the result. It’s a very flexible piece with solos, duets, and other combinations. I can take elements from it and plug them in and out (of concert programs) from now on.”

This complex, evening-length work had its genesis in “Bone Song,” a stark solo pieced together from an assortment of cultural bric-a-brac that Wengerd discovered in Costa Rica. “Bone Song” was a riveting crowd-pleaser when Wengerd danced the taut, ritualistic work in San Diego last fall.

Now this foray into primordial movement--with its striking mix of pre-Columbian masks, animal bones and postmodern minimalist forms--remains relatively intact in the opening movement of “The Bone Cantata.” But its content and structure have been expanded to a sprawling 90-minute work, and the piece has taken on a life of its own.

“In ‘Bone Song,’ the creature (prehistoric man) was making steps toward using tools. What we’re moving toward in this work is decadence,” he said, breaking into a mischievous smile. “We (mankind) fall on our faces.”

In “New Wave,” an ensemble section that features “Butchered Music and the Bone Band,” Wengerd sounds off against new wave music in a deadpan spoof that conjures up images of Ernie Kovacs’ Nairobi Trio.

“There’s a lot of funny stuff in this one,” Wengerd agreed, calling the finale “a celebration of silliness. But ‘Foreplay’ is very gentle and very simple.”

“Meaningful Gestures” is Wengerd’s way of chiding us for “holding onto empty rituals. Taken out of context, meaningful gestures don’t mean a thing, but people continue to go through the motions long after the meanings are lost.”

As the dancers rehearsed this animated section of the dance, Wengerd warned from the sidelines, “Do this very blankly. This should not be colored by any emotions. But do it fast--faster.”

Wengerd has had to tailor his dance designs to conform to Sushi’s performing space and the available dancers. Since male dancers are in short supply here, Wengerd has included some frenzied maneuvers for the women without partners to illustrate his point that “we all need relationships to retain our balance.”

After several years of conducting workshops in San Diego, Wengerd has become the local guru of Graham technique--even among the leading dancers in town.

Ex-Graham dancer Ellen Segal, a staunch Wengerd supporter, is one of dozens of dancers (non-professionals as well as pros) who have come to Sushi to take classes with Wengerd.

“How can you miss it?” she asked. “Tim’s the only one.”

“I came in from Germany to be here,” said Anne Cox, a former Three’s Company dancer who married and moved to Heidelberg. “When I heard Tim would be teaching, I knew I had to come back and attend.”

Segal, Cox and Graciela Torino, who came from Argentina to participate in the sessions, will be featured soloists this weekend, as will Frank Adams from Los Angeles, local dancer Julia Morgan, and Wendy Ellen Cochran, the San Diego-based dancer-instructor who sponsored Wengerd’s visit this year.

“It’s very discouraging to think we can’t attract many dancers of Tim’s caliber to San Diego. I wanted him back, so I decided to sponsor him,” Cochran said. “There are a lot of teachers here (in the workshop classes). If we get a shot in the arm from Tim, we can pass it on to our kids. Most of us are taking two classes a day with him. If you don’t keep up, you’re perpetuating mediocrity. You’re really cheating your students.

“Julia (Morgan) closed down her school and brought all her students here. I did the same thing. I can’t make any money on this, but you don’t do any of these things for money.”