A WHIRLWIND OF WORLD DANCE.

SAN FRANCISCO ETHNIC DANCE FESTIVAL
JUNE 9-11, 16-18, 23-25, 2000
PALACE OF FINE ARTS
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

Going to the annual San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival is both an endurance test and an eye opener. At close to three hours, the shows were too long, especially for families with children, and a loquacious emcee who repeated material already adequately covered in the souvenir program didn't help. With nine different groups on each of the three programs, one needs a substantial appetite for folklorically derived dance forms to digest all these riches. And some of them were decidedly less nutritious than others.

It is impossible, however, not to be drawn into the spirit of both the performers and the audiences; attending the festival is a grounding experience. These so-called nonprofessional dancers, many with exceptional commitment and talent, are salutary reminders of why people have and always will express their lives through dance. And then there are the specific pleasures of work particularly well done. This year was no exception.

The first weekend also featured some intelligent thematic programming that implied relationships: A bharata natyam dancer (unfortunately, a rather unmusical Lakshmi Ramaswamy) was followed by an exuberant 1940s-cabaret-style belly dance group (Tabu Dance Ensemble), which led to a decidedly contemporary reading of flamenco (Yaelisa and Caminos Flamenco) with not a ruffled skirt in sight. The commonality of these dance forms has been well established; here you could see it in action in the erect body postures, expressive arm gestures and detailed footwork.

Infectious joy in communal dancing was effectively communicated by a first-time Ethnic Dance Festival participant, the thirty-member-strong Jubilee American Dance Theatre. Their 1930s-inspired Grange Dance excellently presented the mutating circle, line and couple dances of Appalachian social dance clogging. They were followed by their cousins across the country, the all-male Barbary Coast Cloggers. Most inspiring in this feast for ears and eyes were the many grey heads who held their own in these demonstrations of complex, rapid-fire precision clogging.

Charming, though a little awkwardly constructed, was a southern Filipino wedding ceremony by a very young ensemble, also new to the festival this year, Maharlika Cultural Troupe. It featured wooing among royals and commoners, the latter showcasing an unusual virtuosic male running step with one leg in a kneeling position.

With the exception of two Mexican groups, (Esperanza del Valle from the Pacific coast and Alika del Nayar from the Gulf of Mexico area) and the Murphy Irish Dance Company (which featured at least one future Michael Flatley), the spiritual homes for the second weekend's performers were to be found in Asia. Two of them, Hanmadang (Korea) and Kala Vandana Dance Center (India), in particular, had too much of a recital air about them to participate in a festival of this general caliber. Enthusiasm and earnestness alone do not carry dances moved from communal or school settings to the stage.

Da Island Way (Tahiti), making its festival debut, seemed determined to prove that those Hollywood movies that we have learned to distrust weren't so inaccurate after all. This was a show with admittedly spectacular hip work by soloist Janel Bustamante that would have been right at home in Las Vegas.

Two companies were truly outstanding. Jaipongan and Ketuk Tilu are late '60s social dances from West Java, here adapted for the stage by the delightful Harsanari. Fusing elements from martial arts, court and folk dance elements, the dances were designed to wean young people away from Western pop culture. Unusually flirtatious for coming from a Muslim culture, the women's ambling walk and swinging arms betrayed self-confidence and pleasure at the men's wide-stance and low-to-the-ground circling. They sometimes responded with daring hip thrusts or flicks of their soft belts.

Inexplicably preceding the crude Da Island Way was an astounding eight-member Korean women's group, Podul Fe. They performed Kom Mu, a stylized mourning dance for warriors who will never return. Accompanied by a single drum, the women approached and receded from each other like opposing armies. Measured, stately and inexorable, a hop and a walking barrel turn became mega-events. Not surprisingly, their clashing swords resonated into the night long after the curtain had descended.

The festival's third weekend included performances by dance groups representing the cultures of the Philippines, Poland, Georgia, Mexico, Peru, Cambodia, Spain and Guinea.