With So Many Fine Offerings, Expect to Make Hard Choices

Decisions, decisions. Consumed by either competitive zeal or perverse whimsy, many major local dance presenters are going head-to-head this busy season, forcing hard choices upon Southland audiences. On Oct. 12-13, for instance, UCLA’s Royce Hall offers the authoritative Miami City Ballet production of George Balanchine’s three-part abstract masterwork “Jewels,” while on the same dates the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts introduces the Hong Kong Ballet in “The Last Emperor,” a full-length historical epic choreographed by former Royal Ballet principal Wayne Eagling. Balletomanes, take your pick--and remember that the vibrant, accomplished National Ballet of Cuba arrives at the Orange County Performing Arts Center just a few days later.

Other conflicts occur starting Thursday, when Amalia Hernandez’s beloved Ballet Folklorico de Mexico showcases Mexican traditions at the California Center for the Arts in Escondido and at the Universal Amphitheatre Friday to Sept. 23, while Mexican modernism holds the stage of the Watercourt in L.A.’s California Plaza from Thursday to Saturday, courtesy of Gloria Contreras’ adventuresome chamber ballet, Taller Coreografico de la UNAM. Two visions of Latino heritage, coincidentally superimposed.

The biggest programming pileup of the fall (not counting the annual “Nutcracker” avalanche) comes in the last five days of September, when the Bayanihan Philippine National Dance Company brings its sampling of a rich, diverse, traditional culture to Pepperdine University in Malibu, and then the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts--while choreographer-cum-director Mark Morris’ acclaimed production of the opera “Platee” visits the Orange County Performing Arts Center, and the exemplary modernists of the Jose Limon Company play the Luckman Fine Arts Complex at Cal State L.A. Provocative works by Robert Mirabal, DanceLA and others are also crammed into the same period.

At the very end of November, Japanese butoh master Min Tanaka collaborates with the multidisciplinary, locally based Hirokazu Kosaka at the Japan America Theatre in downtown L.A. in one of the major events of the fall. Yes, this is the same night that the footloose Aussies of “Tap Dogs” are at the California Center for the Arts in Escondido, while the Broadway dance musical “Swing!” continues at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. But the unsparing and even grotesque rigor of Tanaka’s performance is not exactly aimed at the same pop dance public.

The local dance community has its own share of pileups this fall, but also plenty of interest.

Start with “After Eden,” Heidi Duckler’s latest site-specific movement spectacle for Collage Dance Theatre, to be performed in the lush precincts of the Marriott Downtown Oct. 4-7. During its run, the performing traditions of Japan and India merge in “Quiet/Fire,” a brand-new collaboration between Lester Horton Dance Award winner Parijat Desai and percussion whiz Kenny Endo at the Watercourt on Oct. 6.

Finally, Matthew Bourne’s dance drama “The Car Man” runs through Oct. 28 at the Ahmanson Theatre of the L.A. Music Center, so there’s plenty of time to catch it, and the biggest decision involves which of the alternating dancers in the steamy central roles are the ones not to miss.