BALLET REVIEW : New Harlem ‘Swan’ Is An Ugly Duckling

The Dance Theatre of Harlem caused quite a stir in New York last June with a program devoted to three seminal works of Bronislava Nijinska.

The headline in the New York Times called the neglected vehicles “Solemn, Giddy, Dazzling.” A later review heralded “Scandal and Revelation.”

Jack Anderson wrote that “the ballets, which were refreshing and often amazing to watch, surely challenged the dancers’ techniques and expanded their stylistic range.” Anna Kisselgoff invoked the magic word, “masterpiece.”

It seemed as if the company, an eclectic ensemble with a problematic repertory, had ventured a significant step forward. Anticipation ran high for the annual local season--a one-week, two-program stand at Pasadena Civic Auditorium sponsored by the Ambassador Foundation.

But opening night brought disappointment on Monday. Arthur Mitchell and his charges had left their Nijinska at home. Routine export fare would have to be good enough for the boondocks, i.e. Los Angeles.

It wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t even very good.

The worst came first: a “new” production of “Swan Lake,” Act II. It made the company look uncomfortable. It made Tchaikovsky sound raucous. It even made Ivanov’s time-honored choreography look silly.

The familiar set pieces were filtered through the British sensibilities of Frederic Franklin. He, in turn, had been influenced by the ancient staging schemes of Nicholas Sergeyev. At least so the program claimed.

Franklin gave us the White Swan pas de deux pretty much as we know it. But he concocted some strange, anti-musical maneuvers for the tough little flock of 16 that composed the corps de ballet. He assigned the inevitable show-stopping quartet to a gaggle of strikingly superannuated cygnets. He interpolated unmotivated bravura variations both for the prince and for his enigmatic friend, Benno. He hastened Odette’s exquisitely poignant exit in order to dwell on irrelevant cadential poses for the hunting party.

Carl Michel’s decors compounded the problems. The painted backdrop, badly illuminated, depicted a primitive moonscape decorated with exotic flora from some storybook jungle. There were no toy swans on strings that could turn into swan maidens.

The men’s costumes befitted a gym class, not Siegfried’s court. Most damaging, the women’s costumes--short, lacy tutus with droopy tail sections, jeweled bodices with long sleeves, brown stockings with matching toe shoes--made the ethereal creatures look like so many tough birds.

Many of them danced like tough birds too. Delicacy was a sometime thing, precision a matter of chance, characterization a matter of luck.

Under the rough and robust circumstances, the viewer had to be grateful for the clarity of Stephanie Dabney’s cool, long-lined Swan Queen, and for the flamboyant elegance of Ronald Perry’s Prince (one nearly disastrous landing notwithstanding). Robert Garland charged through Benno’s superfluous solo eagerly, and Bernard McClain flapped his cape enthusiastically as Rothbart.

The bona-fide novelty on the program, John McFall’s “Toccata e Due Canzoni,” added little to the standard lore of plotless ballets in which the participants vacillate between classical procedure and modern ritual. The patterns are intriguing, however, the rhythms propulsive, and the contrapuntal gestures striking.

McFall has some interesting ideas about partnering--he likes convoluted lifts and dangerous catches--and he certainly is sensitive to the dynamics of musical form. He reponds to the piquant, chugging impulses of Bohuslav Martinu’s score with nice, quirky finesse.

For their part, the Harlem dancers found a happy balance between the acrobatic and the lyric. The dominating forces here were the willowy Virginia Johnson and the muscular Hugues Magen.

The evening ended with the gentle nostalgia of “Fete Noire,” a sweet neo-Balanchinean exercise devised by Mitchell for his company back in 1971. The spirited, somewhat uneven ensemble on this occasion included Lorraine Graves, Keith Thomas, Judy Tyrus, Dean Anderson, Gregory Jackson, Endalyn Taylor and Charmaine Hunter.

The scraggly, ill-tuned band in the blindingly bright pit struggled through Tchaikovsky and Martinu for Milton Rosenstock, a distinguished veteran of perhaps too many balletic wars. Musical standards rose appreciably, however, in “Fete Noire.” Here, David LaMarche conducted Shostakovich’s Second Piano Concerto with an ear for telling detail, Norman Krieger played the solos with elan, and the lightweight orchestra actually came up with phrases rather than notes.

The small audience seemed happy about everything. Whistles punctuated the cheers.