Around the World in Three Weekends.

San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival Palace of Fine Arts San Francisco, California June 15-30, 2002

If the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, now in its twenty-fourth year, is not the largest gathering of its kind in the country, it certainly is one of the longest running ones. Despite a little-changing format that blissfully mixes community with professional groups chosen by audition, the festival continues to tweak its offerings to balance the need for continuity with the imperative for the new.

This year, for instance, 19 of the 30 companies--out of the 110 that auditioned in January--participated for the first time. More interesting than the sheer numbers was the roster's makeup. The number of participating Latin American companies--from Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, and Argentina--seems to be growing, while such traditional favorites as the large-scale Mexican and Hawaiian ensembles were less in evidence. Not a single indigenous North American (neither Native American nor Appalachian) nor West African company performed. However, two hip-hop groups, the Riordan Break Dancers, a quintet from a local high school, and SoulForce, a company of studio dancers, did take to the stage. Whether these changes in cultural representation indicate shifts in population patterns, dance fashions, or the vagaries of the audition process remains a matter of speculation.

Even though performances are still notoriously long--the first program clocked in at over three hours--individual programs were tightly run, with companies allowed ten-minute slots and soloists five minutes each. A little more than half of the artists performed to live music, an essential ingredient that, as the opening all-live music program showed, the festival probably should insist on.

Parameters of what is "ethnic" continue to evolve. In general the festival has always taken an inclusive approach. This year, for instance, Mambo Romero, an ensemble that performs competitive ballroom style dancing, and Wushu West, a martial arts school, qualified. Wushu West's Wu Ling (Dynamic Spirit), was performed to a commissioned score and staged by former Shanghai Opera and Dance Theatre choreographer David Chen. As result, Wu Ling's spectacular physical feats acquired an emotional resonance which pushed the presentation toward the realm of art.

It came as no surprise that each of the three weekend programs had its share of successful and lesser pieces. The first one, presented in conjunction with the San Francisco World Music Festival, introduced two groups from the former Soviet Union. Sabjilar is a musical trio with impressive throat singers from the southern Siberian republic of Khakas; Elvel, a quartet of Etelman dancers and musicians came from the village of Kovran on the Kamchatka peninsula. The ensemble, dressed in leather and furs, captivated the audience with its athletic and exuberant imitation of animals, the men's mugging, and good-natured competition dancing. Particularly noteworthy were the women's parallel hops and shoulder shakes, which sent their braids flying.

In La Tania's powerfully structured Solea, one volatile mini-drama seamlessly segued into the next. The Namah Ensemble from Iran confirmed the power of musically focused, non-narrative dancing. Accompanied by percussive beats on skins, this trio of incantory dancers spiraled in tandem and around each other as if carried along by the desert wind. Three large community-celebrating ensembles, Group Petit La Croix (Haiti), the Minoan Dancers (Greece) and Ballet Afasneh (Afghanistan) were more impressive for their commitment and enthusiasm than for the intrinsic interest of their dances.

Despite a strong opening by one of EDF's veteran groups, Gamelan Sekar Jaya, in an exquisite Legong (a classic Balinese dance) based on the movements of a crane, and an equally impressive closer by 17-year-old Shanyin Amy Chang in a comedic sword dance, too many of the second weekend's programs sagged. Groups failed either in terms of convincing interpretations of traditional material or strong, committed performances. While Julia Tsitsi Chigamba, rattles attached to her calves and her belt and accompanied by a wonderful ensemble of mbira players, provided a tantalizing glance at the intricacies of a Zimbabwean harvest dance, her two fellow performers were inadequately trained. Reconnect (Haiti) got short-circuited by trying to squeeze too many dance fragments into its ten minutes. Shawna Kealameleku'uleialoha Ngum's frantic efforts to keep her Hawaiian solo on track didn't prevent it from being undercut by frazzled and weak musicians. Teocalli unsuccessfully tried to substitute glitz for exuberance in its mechanical presentation of European-inspired couple dancing from northern Mexico.

Handkerchiefs played roles in two other presentations. In the marinera, Peru's national dance, performed smartly and with a good deal of verve by Taller Artistico y Cultural el Tunante, the handkerchief was a prop for flirtation between the women swaying from side to side holding up their fanlike skirts while the men scooted around them in plie. In Hearan Chung's solo, Salpuri, a ceremonial dance from Korea that started with tiny hiccupping steps and flowed into smoothly serpentine lines, a delicately manipulated handkerchief stood for the human soul.

In addition to the hip-hop groups that demonstrated the evolution of the form, two terrific ensembles energized the last weekend's lineup. Marcelo y Valesa Solis's deft rendering of the intricacies of 1940s-style tango sparkled with wit and sex appeal without ever raising a leg above knee level. Gliding by each other, they interjected small hops and skips into cross-stepping patterns. They flicked a leg or hooked it around a partner's without missing a beat of the scratchy, old-time music. Emese: Messengers of the African Diaspora is a new Afro-Cuban ensemble directed by Silfredo La O Vigo, who also happens to be a dancer with ODC/San Francisco and an accomplished painter. His three-part Voz de los Orishas (Voices of the Orishas) tackled the familiar subject of the Yoruban deities who found a new home in the Carribbean. La O Vigo's approach to presenting them in dance was choreographically clear and theatrically effective. The opening, with the dancers in white, emphasized communal group movements. This segued into a musical section with the dancers joining the musicians, using gourds to enhance their invocatory circle and line dances. The subsequent solos evoked each Orisha's individual power--space-eating leaps and fierce attacks for the sword-yielding warrior Ogun, and magnificent brocades, undulating hips, and a soft smile for the beauty of Oshun. At the end they all came together for a final tableau, a pantheon of the gods.