Music and Dance Reviews : ‘Twisted Spring’ Series Comes to a Close at LACE

Oddly paired works completed the “Twisted Spring” programs of choreographer-composer collaborations Friday at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE).

Sarah Elgart’s “Blind Faith” resembled an MTV video. Emphasis was on striking, high-gloss production values (14 trunk-size blocks of ice, moodily lit). The dancers wore military-chic costumes, nattily torn and expertly tailored. The choreography consisted of bite-sized bits of movement, often amplified into depersonalized chorus-line unisons.

Ideas were arresting--seven “blind” dancers with white-tipped canes staggering around the stage--but even at 40 long minutes, went unplumbed, undeveloped.

Ed Tomney created the serviceable musique concrete score.

By contrast, Nancy Lee’s “From Grace,” for all its clumsiness and obscurity, at least had the virtue of psychological probing, tracing the progress of a modern-day pilgrim (a secure Sara Wolf) toward some kind of illumination.

But who or what were the three gymnastic ladies (Suzee Goldman, Sun-Mi Jin and Jane Real)? Muses? Graces? Norns? Antagonists? Disciples? Maybe all of the above.

Though not closely tied to the music, the work also had the benefit of Andrew Picken’s attractive, Irish folk tune-inspired score, played sensitively by violinists Jolianne Von Einem and Sue Giordano, violist J. Lee Graham an cellist Susanna P. Reilly.