Music and Dance Reviews : Dancers Pell and Bates at Santa Monica College

Former Bella Lewitzky dancers Iris Pell and Gary Bates were strong and compelling simply in movement terms, but it was their dance-theater works that packed the most wallop when the two gave their first concert together Friday at Santa Monica College.

Pell’s new, three-part solo “Lady Liberty” made strong, caring social indictments through visual and musical contrasts. A bag lady exhibits panic, paranoia and mad, blithe freedom to the radiant “Wachet auf” chorale from Bach’s Cantata No. 140. A majorette almost discovers hysteria beneath her pasted-on smile to the pulse-racing rhythms of a Sousa march. The famous Ellis Island statue becomes magically mobile with expressions of compassion and nurturing, but slowly collapses to the ineffably sad final chorus from Bach’s “St. Matthew” Passion.

Similarly, Bates’ new, three-part solo, “Beneath the Tears” found the dancer responding with nervous tics and twitches to Arvo Paert’s serene, synthesized evocation of Gregorian chant, and embarking on distraught, soul-searching journeys to a haunting vocalise for soprano, clarinet and piano by Michael Cave.

By comparison, their new duet “Surface,” to Peter Davison’s pebbly, woody sound score, remained mostly a formal exercise, exploring contact at the boundaries, for all the dancers’ commitment and resourceful athleticism.

The improvisatory solo “What Was Your Day Like?” found Bates fluently responding to the audience. Pell strongly danced her punishing, ultimately triumphant solo “Return.” “Star Dust Memories” offered lyric abstractions and segued graciously into the duo’s curtain call.