Joffrey Ballet of Chicago.

SHUBERT THEATRE, CHICAGO MAY 22-JUNE 2, 1996 REVIEWED BY LAURA MOLZAHN

The Joffrey has always been eclectic, but in its local debut as the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago, eclectic spilled over into erratic. A company that has always aimed to please pandered openly to audiences at the Chicago Spring Festival of Dance in gimmicky new works, sometimes in styles with which the dancers were clearly not comfortable.

Consider the premiere Legends, a pastiche of six dances by five women choreographers set to songs sung by vocalists from Edith Piaf to Bette Midler. Only about half these dances were made specifically for this piece, conceived and directed by artistic director Gerald Arpino. And it showed: the dances were just as distinct and unrelated as the six sets of bright red lips and dazzling teeth--like clips from fifties toothpaste ads--that floated on a scrim during the overture.

"Dance for Val," a wispy solo set to Piaf and partly performed on a swing by choreographer Joanna Haigood, has the idiosyncratic directness of modern dance: it works because of the dancer's eye contact with the audience (and because of the swing). It and other softer works contrasted harshly with Ann Reinking's brutal choreography in "My Heart Belongs to Me" (to Barbra Streisand) and "Sentimental Journey," whose black-underwear costumes, venetian-blind lighting, and self-caressing gestures were odd accompaniment to Ella Fitzgerald's mellow, sweet voice and rolling phrases.

In other sections the dancers seemed uneasy in styles to which they're unaccustomed. The women looked stiff and uncomfortably brazen in Margo Sappington's pseudo-Caribbean "Lena Goes Latin & Sings Your Requests" (Lena Home). But perhaps the biggest disappointment was Sherry Zunker Dow's "The Man That Got Away," essentially a female solo (with a man as a prop) that her own local company, River North, performs better. Technically, Julie Janus was fine, but she didn't put across the personality, the juice and sleaze, that make this dance funny--and horrifying, given Judy Garland's tragicomic rendition.

The only section of Legends that really grabbed me by the lapels was "Stay with Me," a duet by Joffrey associate director Ann Marie DeAngelo set to a concert version of the song by Midler. Riveting in their violence and sexuality, Maia Wilkins and Adam Sklute maintained a fine balance between abandon and classical control, literally throwing themselves at and away from each other.

Another Joffrey premiere, Mehmet Sander's Inner Space, revolves around a trick: the "dancing" takes place inside a Plexiglas cube. The audience gasped at the opening image--three dancers hanging from the cube's sides--and laughed as they formed body sandwiches or slammed their noses against the clear walls of their cage. But the laughter diminished as the element of surprise passed--and there really wasn't much else going on. It's not as though the dance is strong enough to encourage a metaphoric interpretation of the title.

Of the dances unfamiliar to Chicagoans, only Vicente Nebrada's Nuestros Valses went beyond gimmickry. This piece for five couples suits the Joffrey to a T (Nebrada was once a Joffrey dancer), cleverly exploring the simultaneously public and private nature of ballroom dance, which it stylizes and humanizes: an old-fashioned tableau of dancers in ceremonious poses came to life in a series of duets revealing the trajectory from ballroom to bedroom. With Teresa Carreno's piano compositions played live onstage, Nuestros Valses had a life and integrity that Legends and Inner Space lacked. Meridith Benson's dancing stood out for its piquant drama and technical polish.

Many of the Joffrey's programs reflected the smorgasbord approach of Legends, throwing together works unlike in mood, style, or both. And it's ironic that a troupe that's made its reputation partly as a purveyor of dance tradition should identify only the works that the Joffrey had performed with the date and place of their premieres, while pieces such as Randy Duncan's Initiation and Copland Motets (made for the now-defunct Joseph Holmes Chicago Dance Theatre) were treated as if they had no prior history. I know Chicago is supposed to be overjoyed at the "homecoming" (how so?) of a company we keep on being told is world-class. But I'm still hoping for a little more class and a little less smoke and mirrors.