Obsession With Talk Overwhelms Artistry

When she trusts her eyes and her heart, Liz Lerman creates modern dance of ravishing simplicity and emotional resonance. Based in Washington, D.C., she has spent 20 years building an accomplished company that is distinctively multiracial and multi-generational. Unfortunately, she often compromises the expressive richness of her choreography and the artistry of her dancers with relentlessly clever spoken texts.

At the UCLA Dance Building on Tuesday, Lerman’s “Flying Into the Middle” offered an intuitive, mercurial reflection of the lyric flow in Tchaikovsky’s Opus 50 piano trio. The dancing for Lerman’s 10-member Dance Exchange proved ideally sensitive and sophisticated--but Lerman insisted on delivering a lecture during the piece about being middle-class, middle-aged, middle-American, etc. And Lord help dance when she’s in the mood to yammer.

Obsession with talk utterly overwhelmed movement interest in “Faith and Science on the Midway, Shehechianu Phase I,” which used the 1904 World’s Fair as a pretext to juggle incompatible themes: Jewish philosophy, AIDS and other catastrophic diseases, a condescending American fascination with the exotic, gay versus straight perceptions and more. Lerman had few real truths to tell here, merely lots of data and zingers to unload. The sprawling, scattershot result exposed fine dancers as mediocre actors.

Happily, her company looked glorious in the surging, inventive group-bonding ceremony “This Is Who We Are” (music by Wayne Horvitz), while an untitled work-in-progress to pop ballads splendidly showcased her four senior dancers. In each piece, the artful juxtaposition of old and young made profound statements about body and spirit with no need for words.

The Liz Lerman Dance Exchange appeared at UCLA as part of Lerman’s weeklong residency. No further performances are scheduled.