LADT program salutes De Mille and McKayle.

LOS ANGELES--Los Angeles Dance Theatre is saluting choreographers Agnes de Mille and Donald McKayle with a program called Trailblazers: Dancers of Change, September 1-2, at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre. The two choreographers are being honored as innovators who redefined the boundaries between the concert stage and musical theater.

With this program, LADT's codirectors, Bonnie Oda Homsey and Janet Eilber, both former leading dancers with the Martha Graham company, are continuing their commitment to preserve landmarks of American dance. "Bonnie Oda Homsey and Janet Eilber have performed a major service for the art of dance in their remarkable programs that re-create endangered masterpieces of the past," says McKayle. Unlike the company's previous two programs, Trailblazers will emphasize group works, bringing together a roster of twenty guest artists to perform them. Weeping Women in Dance, shown in April 1994, and The Indomitable Spirit of Woman, which had its premiere in February 1995, re--created historic solos. Homsey and Eilber won a 1995 Lester Horton Award for the reconstructions in Weeping Women, and Eilber received a second Horton award for her performances in that piece.

The company was founded by Homsey in 1978; after a hiatus, it reestablished itself with Weeping Women. With an eye to touring, the troupe is changing its name to American Repertory Dance Company; the name Los ANgeles Dance Theatre will be retained for the parent nonprofit organization.

The de Mille retrospective begins with her early character study, Debut at the Opera (1928), followed by the ballet suite from the musical Carousel (1945), which has been restaged by de Mille's longtime associate, Gemze de Lappe. The Carousel segment will feature Homsey and guest artists from several major companies. Eilber and guest artists will perform excerpts from Brigadoon (1947), restaged by Diana Gonzales.

McKayle, who is restaging his own works for the program, is represented by an early dramatic solo, Saturday's Child (1948), danced by Eilber, followed by a character duet, "Spanish Tinge" from the 1976 Album Leaves, performed by Homsey and former Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater soloist Hector Mercado. "Safe Harbor" from the 1994 Gumbo Ya-Ya features Rebecca Wright, formerly with Joffrey Ballet and American Ballet Theatre, and Lawrence Blake, formerly with the Joffrey. L. Martina Young dances the signature solo Angelitos Negros, which dates from 1972, and the program concludes with a suite from Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder (1959).