‘White Light’ Dance Concert Proves an Illuminating Experience

SAN DIEGO —  Judging by their enthusiastic cheers, no one in the overflow audience felt cheated by the absence of lighting and sets at the “White Light” concert given by Isaacs, McCaleb & Dancers at their Hillcrest studio on Saturday night. In fact, many probably enjoyed the “backstage” glimpses of dancers waiting in the exposed wings, amid a welter of props.

Nevertheless, the four dances on the program--two choreographed by Jean Isaacs and two by Nancy McCaleb--did not fare equally well in the bare-bones theatrical setting. Curiously, the more successful pieces, Isaacs’ “Canopy” and McCaleb’s “Vivat St. Petersburg!,” were those missing the most, materially. “Canopy” lacked its big overhanging sculptured canopy. “Vivat St. Petersburg!,” created as a multimedia work, was performed without its slide projections of contemporary Russian paintings. Both works, however, retained a great deal of power.

“Vivat St. Petersburg!” in particular lived up to the promise of the extremely low-tech concert, as an opportunity to appreciate the purely movement elements of the seven-dancer troupe’s repertory. With minimal stagecraft, compared to the work’s premiere last January, it was easier to see how deftly McCaleb had choreographed this parable of the rise and fall of Soviet Communism.

McCaleb’s use of groups of dancers has never been better, whether they moved in near-unison in an arresting diagonal formation or were splashed across the stage. In one juicily complex section, Ricardo Peralta mimed haranguing the audience, at the same time the four women crept up on a greedy bureaucrat, John Diaz; Diaz was stuffing loaves of bread into his capacious overcoat.

Even in “white light,” “Vivat St. Petersburg!” remained highly theatrical, with the gifted (and bald) Peralta imitating Kruschev banging his shoe and a hilarious bit in which a “drunken,” lurching Greg Lane sang--quite well--at the top of his lungs.

Although Lane is new to the troupe, the movements of this dance fit him so divinely it could have been choreographed with him in mind. (Loni Palladino, who, like Lane, comes from Malashock Dance and Company, danced flawlessly in her first local appearance with Isaacs, McCaleb, but the evening’s pieces didn’t give her quicksilver style a real chance to shine.)

One disappointment in this version of “Vivat St. Petersburg!” was that McCaleb had removed a section in which one man, blindfolded, agilely responded to the manipulations of two others. Instead, Peralta and Diaz carried first a rigidly horizontal Palladino across the stage, and then Lane. McCaleb should bring back the blindfold. The new segment fell flat.

Despite the absence of the actual “Canopy,” Isaacs’ rainforest dance lost little of its primitive power, thanks especially to the use of South American rainsticks--wooden tubes about 3 feet long, filled with seeds; when the rainstick is tipped, the seeds slide to the bottom with an evocative rush and rattle.

What Isaacs did brilliantly was to invent a dozen beautiful ways to dance with a rainstick: holding it horizontally overhead, one leg raised to the side in a high, sustained extension. Stepping forward into a deep lunge and pulling the rainstick alongside the body as if paddling a canoe down the Amazon, using a rainstick to push Terry Wilson lying on her stomach, so her arched body turned in a circle.

Less convincing in the “white light” than the more epic dances were Isaacs’ “Little Passions” and McCaleb’s “Torch,” romantic works that depended on striking an emotional chord.

In “Little Passions,” Terry Wilson was a woman “reflecting” on her past relationships, portrayed by two couples, Peralta with Palladino and Diaz with Stacy Scardino-Sagely. As the couples alternated between intimacy and conflict, Wilson danced alone, conveying intense suffering. What strong, expressive hands Wilson has! She did a gesture with fingers spread, extended rigidly, that seemed a distillation of grief.

“Little Passions” didn’t live up to its fine performances, however, perhaps because it needed full staging to build its melancholy mood. But the problems with this dance seemed deeper. The choreography for Wilson tended to become histrionic. And the two different couples’ connection and conflict looked too much the same. The depressing point may be that we repeat the same patterns in each relationship, but more variation would have added texture to this dance.

McCaleb’s “Torch” is a lush work to a swelling Michael Nyman score. The women in semi-formal gowns and men in dress shirts and ties sometimes partnered as at a ball--and sometimes ran around the periphery of the stage, panting competitors in a relationship marathon. It’s a physically demanding dance, and Saturday’s “Torch” lacked the vitality of previous performances. The dancers had performed the night before in New Mexico and this was the final work on the program. They may have just run out of steam.