Ballet Hispanico, Joyce Theater, November 28-December 10, 1995.

BALLET HISPANICO JOYCE THEATER NOVEMBER 28-DECEMBER 10, 1995 REVIEWED BY ANNE TOBIAS

It's true that if you attend a good number of dance events in New York City, you will be rewarded with the game and well-boned performances of a good number of fine dancers. A companion truth is this: The pool of choreographic talent is comparatively shallow.

Ballet Hispanico, celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary this season, provides a case in point. The company members abound with talent. The sheer physical beauty of the dancers is eclipsed only by their polished technique. It's clear that they are rigorously trained, capable of all manner of wow-zow leaps, delicious leg extensions, and eye-popping pirouettes.

But the dancers seem young, whatever their actual ages. The most sophisticated presence comes from Linda Caceres, whose unassuming gravity and acute musical instincts lend her performances depth and shades of dramatic complexity. Many of the other dancers, however, approach their movement as an opportunity for self-display. They certainly inject infectious vitality into their dancing, but they also seem to be monitoring the effects in an invisible mirror.

Who can blame them? Some of the major works in Ballet Hispanico's repertoire deal with dance as a consumable product, full of pretty people doing extraordinary things. Graciela Daniele's Cada Noche ... Tango (1988), is particularly guilty in this regard. It takes place in a brothel and proceeds to illustrate erotic shenanigans without a shred of irony or distance. So we get an eyeful of scantily clad women courting abuse from the men who desire their services. One scene that I found especially offensive glamorized with slick choreographic maneuvers what seemed like the near rape of a woman who, during the course of the interlude, was stripped to her undergarments, pulled by her hair, and brutally handled. Given this level of material, the dancers can hardly be expected to rise to artistic maturity.

The company's premiere of the season, Tears for Violeta, by the Spanish choreographer Ramon Oller, represents a step in the right direction. The hearty, weighty phrases preclude superficial treatment and draw from the dancers detailed explorations into movement, its texture, its density, its unpredictable life. These lovely, intelligent dancers deserve nothing less.