Music and Dance Reviews : L.A. Dance Theatre Gives Two Premieres

Widely regarded as one of the brilliant choreographers of his generation, Donald Byrd has created works for companies such as the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater as well as his own New York-based troupe. So it was something of a coup for Lula Washington’s Los Angeles Contemporary Dance Theatre to commission and get a work from Byrd.

The result, “The Communion,” which received its premiere Saturday in Thorne Hall at Occidental College in Eagle Rock, pays happy, overt and prolonged homage to Washington as teacher, leader and nurturer--in short, as matriarch.

Initially seated on a kind of throne, Washington was observed by four alert, attentive dancers--her daughter, Tamica Washington, and Atalya Bates, Maisha Brown and Jennifer Newman. Her sharp-edged, emblematic moves, set against a pulsing score by Byrd’s regular collaborator, Mio Morales, established the vocabulary which was explored and incrementally developed by the four women.

For much of the work, Byrd had the four move in tight synchronicity, sustaining and multiplying images of swelling force through use of an irrefutable movement logic.

Unfortunately, the company members required more frequent rest spots than do his own accomplished dancers, and so the piece--despite some lovely images of Washington cradling three of the dancers one by one--grew episodic and blurry by the end. The final solos, too, looked geared mostly for garnering audience applause.

Also receiving its premiere was Washington’s “Jookin,” an eight-part theater suite of social dances in which the overwrought emotive duties assigned to Tamica often grated against the sensitive excepts about loneliness and search read by actress Dianne McCannon from works by Terry McMillan.

Completing the program was “ ‘93: The Year of Technology,” a 20-minute segment from Washington’s previously reviewed “Circle of Dance.”