BALLET BRITISH COLUMBIA.

BALLET BRITISH COLUMBIA QUEEN ELIZABETH THEATRE, VANCOUVER, CANADA NOVEMBER 5-7, 1998

There's too much talk in John Alleyne's new The Goldberg, threatening the credibility of this otherwise attractively staged work about the mysteries of the universe. Unlike Jerome Robbins's The Goldberg Variations, a 1971 ballet to the same Bach score, Alleyne's work carries a heavy narrative burden. Well meant but simplistic chunks of dialogue among three main characters, representing sensuality (Emily Molnar as a Healer/Physician), spirituality (John Ottmann as a Theologian), and intellectualism (Todd Woffinden as an Astronomer), continually deaden the momentum. After the earnest monologue beginning Act Two, Star Gazer Sylvain Senez walks forward, reaches longingly upward, and then drops down in a gratifyingly direct moment of dance that puts the chatter to shame.

Alleyne, Ballet British Columbia's artistic director, is well known for wanting to break boundaries, and the work's theatrical sprawl is reminiscent of last season's Boy Wonder. It's the influence of a 1996 collaboration with Canada's master of contact improvisation, Peter Bingham, that's more interesting, however. The unique blend of contact improv and ballet found in Remember Me From Then is evident in the new work in the rounded torsos and weighted look of much of the partnering, which Alleyne cleverly connects to classical poses and steps. Gail Skrela was particularly fascinating in the way she embodied this dual aesthetic. Skrela, one of five Celestial Beings, costumed by Paul Daigle in a dark blue tutu, has a freedom in her torso that gives her dancing a compelling liveliness, married to a classical, more upright serenity. In a duet with fellow Celestial Wen Wei Wang (dressed in inexplicably dull pants and top), Skrela lifts his leg through an arabesque as if she's performing angelic favors.

The set design by Bill Pechet--an array of telescopes, planets, and high-backed translucent chairs that double as stars--is superb, and Gerald King's lighting creates a layered stage space. A real treat is the transcription for strings of Bach's Goldberg Variations, conducted by Clyde Mitchell and performed live. Interspersed throughout is a recording by the demon perfectionist, the late Glenn Gould, whose piano version sounds almost labored by comparison.

The evening opened with the brief There, below, a 1989 piece by James Kudelka. Five couples are paired in a blue-lit space, with long moments of stillness unusual in dance. There's a comradely feel to the calm, strong thrust of this equal-opportunity work, set to Vaughan Williams's Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis.