Music and Dance Reviews : A New Cast for Joffrey’s ‘Green Table’

Now 60 years old, and still as extraordinary in its visual impact and social meaning as ever, Kurt Jooss’ revolutionary anti-war ballet, “The Green Table,� seems indestructible.

For one thing, the emotion in this German Expressionist classic is encoded in the movement; as a kind of poster art it needs only a performance faithful to style, tone and choreography to succeed.

And that’s what the Joffrey Ballet’s second cast provided Thursday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The figure of Death, for example, requires someone of imposing size and stature--otherwise the stalking goose-step and robotic embrace of victims would lose its fearsomeness.

Daniel Baudendistel, behind his mask, guaranteed that menace down to the last foot shudder. The other new cast members, in roles less stylized than his, also gave accounts of high profile and danced with a legible appreciation of steps and gestures.

But some were more convincing than others. Jodi Gates, as the Woman, conveyed greater horror, for instance, than Deborah Dawn, as the Old Mother, while Kim Sagami, a supple, unresisting martyr in her death throes, epitomized the Young Girl’s innocence.

The rest of the program was previously reviewed.