2000 FEET: A CELEBRATION OF WORLD DANCE.

2000 FEET: A CELEBRATION OF WORLD DANCE MERRIAM THEATER PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA JUNE 20-24, 1999

With performances, workshops, panels, and classes scheduled literally from morn to midnight, 2000 Feet was a treat of a feat. Targeted to bring together 1,000 performers--thus the clever title--this weeklong festival hosted seventy companies and a cadre of scholars, critics, and other dance professionals. The World Dance Alliance, Dance Critics Association, and Dance/USA were among the dance organizations that met in conjunction with the event. The whole shebang was conceived by Susan Glazer (Dance Division, University of the Arts) and Pearl B. Schaeffer (Philadelphia Dance Alliance).

Barring the supermarket quality inherent in mega-events and the fact that an entire continent (Africa) was unrepresented, a "dance blitz" such as this allows us to see firsthand the widespread influence of American concert dance on world dance and to witness the ways in which representative cultures are making sense of their world through dance. The ever-present danger is that technical expertise becomes an end in itself.

The evening showcases featured twenty-three companies. The Taipei Crossover Dance Company had the task of being first to perform (owing to a last-minute program change). Lo Man-fei's The Dark Side of the Moon, a stylistic offshoot of Martha Graham's psychomytho-drama aesthetic, created a taut stage picture with the air so charged you could cut it with a knife.

Modes of partnering caught my fancy. From Mexico, the Delfos Contemporary Dance Company's It Hurts (Victor Manuel Ruiz), a contact improvisation-influenced male duet concerned with sexual ambivalence, was a fine exercise in kinetic daring and split-second timing in a tense scenario that translated violence into passion. China's Guangdong Modern Dance Company's Sign (Rong Tao and Hou Ying) was refreshing in its male-female equality (in too many other works the female body became an instrument for gymnastic manipulation). As mood-mirrors of each other, this couple's tense, then burst-to-release movements were offset by compassionate gestures that eased the despair undergirding their expressionist vocabulary. Jigsaw (Natalie Weir) by Expressions (Australia) saw two male-female couples dealing with sex, self, and identity. In a suite of excruciating extensions and lifts (an instance of female body maneuvering), Emily Amisano and Peter Furness protected and shielded each other from some unseen foe. Terri-Lee Milne and Jaime Redfern were playful, in a mean sort of way. Using an ingenious prop of hinged wooden squares that converted into multiple shapes and lengths (Bruce McKinnen, designer), they approached and repelled in a dance that was a primer in sensual, sensitive partnering.

Indeed, relationships, sexuality, and gender were ripe, recurrent themes. Danceart Hong Kong's One-Third Woman (Francis Leung; dancers Leung and Andy Wong) took the taboo step of exploring the ins and outs of transvestism and male prostitution. Audience discomfort was registered in isolated bursts of nervous laughter. However, the piece is extraordinary and exquisite. It's a wonderful character study, particularly for Leung, and was performed with beauty and flair.

Kudos to African American tap artists La Vaughn Robinson and Germaine Ingram for bringing intimacy and improvisation to the mix--qualities not in abundance in tightly choreographed, technique-centered works. Ingram's inimitable solo was accompanied by an onstage saxophonist playing "Dancing in the Dark." The pair jammed, jived, and traded phrases, the musician dancing as he dipped and swayed with his instrument, the dancer herself a musical instrument from head to percussive feet.

Intimacy was also established in the remarkable offering of Isaburoh Hanayagi and his Tamagawa Dance and Drama Group from Japan. Performing in kyogen style, their task was to make subtle complexity resonate in this high-tech, in-your-face setting. Like Robinson and Ingram's, their repertory was an excursion into another definition of dance. The high point was Hanayagi's eloquent solo, Shooting Star. With the use of several masks (including that of a baby), he instantly transforms into characters before our eyes, his shifts in body language and economy of means a lesson-namely, less is more!

First-rate performances were given by the Frontier Danceland company from Singapore (Cloud, Low Mei Yoke), Transitions from England (Spin Through Scudding Clouds, Jochen Heckmann), United Dance Productions from Bermuda (Incidents of a Slave Girl, Kevin Malone, a gorgeous example of yet another African diaspora fusion style, in the spirit of Katherine Dunham, Alvin Ailey, and Philadanco), the United States's Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company (Dragons on the Wall, Chen, with music composed and performed by Joan La Barbara and a witty, effective use of nonverbal sounds by the dancers), and Hong Kong Academy (Different Trains, Rosalind Newman, with Steve Reich's hot ticket of a score; the dance--more kinetic than emotive--is a good group work that fills, expands, and moves the space).

The final performers were Philadelphia's wonderful, earthy Voloshky Ukrainian Dance Ensemble. How apropos to end with a "folk dance" company to drive home the fact that we are all "just folks" and that all dance is ethnic.