sarma

Spanish dance, Europe's richest traditional form, can be innocent, lighthearted, elegant, sensual. The different regions of Spain produce springy couple dances -like the jota aragonese with its squared-off arm positions and clacking castanets, or grave circle dances like the sardana of Catalonia, or classical 18th century court dances like the pavanne, or the Flamenco dances of Andalusia, and many more. Flamenco is perhaps the most exotic -reminiscent of the dance of North India in which the dancer also maintains a taut carriage and uses rhythmic foot-stamping and slowly circling wrist gestures. Flamenco is also fiercely affirmative; its powerful sexuality is like an assault on death.

Many Flamenco dancers overplay this sexuality -especially, I suspect, for American audiences. Often the performer manages to convey by his shrugging shoulders, thrusting hips, hot-eyed stares, that he can hardly wait to get off stage to jump into bed with somebody . . . anybody. Of course, this can be terrifically exciting, but it can also be vulgar and even funny.

Mariano Parra's company is decidedly not vulgar nor is it funny. Jerane Michel, Barbara Martos, Parra, and his sisters Ines and Mariana perform a variety of Spanish dance styles with skill and elegance. They put on a good show. You can admire the controlled fire of tall, slim Jerane Michel, or the spacious way small Mariana uses her arms, or Ines's long, pliable body, or Barbara Martos's beautiful vehemence with the floor. Parra himself is tall and slender and performs with a certain hauteur. He likes stopping suddenly in stretched-out lunges. His heelwork has a marvelous clarity, and he's subtle with the castanets. The voice of Dominico Cara, the guitars of Guillermo Montes and Emilio Prados (the latter played two solos), the piano accompaniment of Sandra Owen added a lot of zip to the program that I saw at the Fashion Institute.

Well, so the company is elegant, tastful, skilled -all that. And I admire Parra for not permitting excessive camping around. Yet in many numbers, I found the dancing a bit pale -as if the performers were not getting any emotional feedback from their dancing (or if they were, were controlling it masterfully). They seem so anxious to present each little step as a polished gem, distinct from its neighbors, that the dancing loses its impetus, its flow. Spanish dancers that I have admired the most (Luisillo, for example, or Roberto Ximenez) have a way of making a chain of small repeated movements appear to grow more powerful -louder, almost. It's as if the steps formed a swelling wave; the dancer who rides the wave must exert more and more authority in order to quell it, in order to avoid being lost. It's a very subtle thing, and I'm probably explaining it badly. Anyhow, Parra's dancers, for the most part, release their energy in even spurts. The sudden stops do make interesting punctuation, but no movement, no phrase seems more important than any other. So the effect is always attractive and agreeable, but not often profoundly exciting.

Because the dancers are best at light, purling passages, I especially liked Parra's elegant "Playeras" and "Evocación", a quiet dance for Parra, Martos, and the two Parra girls. This last was choreographed by La Meri, and its small canonic passages along a diagonal line are very pretty. (I like these even though I'm not a fan of solo piano Albéniz, Granados, and de Falla. I'm reminded of salon art and wish someone would use Scarlatti or Soler, or something beside those sweet old chestnuts.) Jerane Michel did a fine "La Caña". And Parra made an interesting "Romanza Gitana" for the company.

This last intrigued me, not only because I liked the choreography, but because it exemplified the hierarchy of casting within the company. Barbara Martos and Ines and Mariano Parra are almost always featured as a trio. Mariano Parra dances with the three of them together (except in one zapateado) or by himself or with Jerane Michel. In "Romanza Gitana", the three act like a sisterly bodyguard to escort him on and later to separate him from Michel. Parra is the only man in the company, so I found myself wishing that he'd occasionally deploy the dancers he has in a more surprising way. Inevitably, Parra's dance personna emerges (for those given to daydreaming irreverently, like me) as a conscientious man too busy supporting his three sisters to make out with the girl of his dreams.