La La La Human Steps.

LA LA LA HUMAN STEPS UCLA's ROYCE HALL LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA NOVEMBER 12-15, 2003

Like silent films oozing beauty in stark black and white imagery, so, too, does Amelia, Edouard Lock's latest masterpiece. Created for his twenty-four-year old Montreal-based company, La La La Human Steps, the ninety-minute work made its American debut at Royce Hall as part of the UCLA Live series, landing with a dazzling furioso grace.

Part Edward Muybridge, part The Matrix Revolutions, and all Lock, the abstract dance was inspired by a pair of transvestites the choreographer knew as a youth. If, as it's been said, that men are the new women, this company's gender-bending style screams twenty-first century: Lock, whose foray into full-throttle assaultive pointe work began with his Salt (1998), goes a step further with an incredible Billy Smith, clad in all Armani suit and pink satin toe shoes. His duet with the astounding Zofia Tujaka (also suited up) is a study in freeform energy.

And, as befits a technological society, isolation rules. On Stephane Roy's set of constantly shifting black and white panels (think fine lace), the eight dancers make use of a frenzied vocabulary, whether in quicksilver entrechats, whiplash pirouetting, or angst-ridden arm gestures. Add to this John Munro's stark lighting charges, occasionally strobe-like and otherworldly, and the tableau is a fugue of swirling, dislocated patterns. Also compounding the effect--and a perfect fit--is David Lang's mesmerizing original score. Performed live onstage by a violinist, pianist, cellist, and female vocalist, who sings lyrics to five Lou Reed songs, the opus is a dark journey. Like the spidery set and Vandal's net black costumes, these are tangled lives, torn and troubled.

Besides Smith, three other men--Bernard Martin, Jason Shipley-Holmes, and Keir Knight--soar in a pas de quatre reminiscent of West Side Story's rumble: Falling backbends, Mt. Everest-like elevation, and Lock's signature speeds steps course throughout.

In addition, three women take the form of virtual ballerinas in film projections. Digitized, they float above the stage, Lock's cyber-marionettes. For real, Andrea Boardman, Mistaya Hemingway, Chun-Hong Li, and Tujaka, nevertheless appear bionic. Fervent, in-your-face, and occasionally executing backwards bourrees, this is a universe of endless possibilities.

When Lang's score treads on poignant ground, sure, there's a bit of tenderness, a kiss here, a kiss there, but these are also ballet bitches, slapping and being slapped. Like meteor showers and shooting stars, this octet of brightly burning performers are, in their aloneness, also suffused with a patina of ambisexuality, ultimately begging the question: Where can Lock go from here?

FOR UPCOMING PERFORMANCES

La La La Human Steps's world tour continues through September 2004, stopping in France, Belgium, Austria, and Korea. See www.LaLaLaHumanSteps.com.