DANCE REVIEW : Time Traveling With the Avaz Troupe

All folk dance troupes offer vicarious travel, showing audiences the cultural riches of far-flung regions. Only the most daring, however, take you to another time--reproducing societal heartbeats very different from our own. Instead, most companies crank up the pace, or vary the pattern, so that an old dance matches the pulse of contemporary entertainment.

Not Avaz International Dance Theatre. This 14-year-old, locally based ensemble began its performance Sunday at the Wilshire Ebell with one of its four newest pieces, Anthony Shay’s leisurely arrangement of social dances from Split, Croatia. The eight couples wore heavy black clothes, with aprons and bows of brighter, often glittering, fabric ornamenting the women. The step and spatial design of the dance exuded architectural formality: people gliding through geometric configurations defining their plateau in a class structure.

Tempo and complexity did increase toward the end, but essentially Shay dropped us into a world that we’d probably find insufferably stodgy if we brought our modern values to it. But Avaz managed to keep us interested, awake our anthropological curiosity and perhaps even deliver a shock of recognition: Some of these solemn old geezers resembled the photos of our grandparents at our age.

Two new classical dances from Uzbekistan, Central Asia, contrasted the flowing style characteristic of Samarkand with the vigorous attacks associated with Bukhara. (Shay’s spoken introductions made sure we understood the difference.)

Carolyn Krueger’s Samarkand solo emphasized rippling movements of the wrists, arms and shoulders. Her Bukhara duet with co-choreographer Ixchel Dimetral-Maerker (often juxtaposed with Krueger in mirror-synchrony) featured intricately segmented gestural statements, bold manipulation of long headdress-veils and kneeling backbends displaying great flexibility of the upper torso. Samarkand had the benefit of live accompaniment but Bukhara had to accept taped percussion: a rare lapse of Avaz standards.

Shay spoke of the relationship of Uzbek culture to Iranian traditions--a point of pride to the many Iranian-Americans in the audience and an insight to everyone else.

Maerker’s new Persian court ensemble for six women showed those traditions at their most elegant, with the delicate accents from the dancers’ finger cymbals highlighting their rhythmic undulations. However, the piece seemed much too short for its wealth of movement and costume detail to make an effect.

Among familiar repertory, Shay’s suite from Bosnia proved one of Avaz’s finest achievements: strikingly staged and memorable for the sheer weight and conviction of the dancing as well as the variety of occupations and national influences depicted. Cultural time travel at its most persuasive.