Los Angeles Modern Dance and Ballet.

Everything old looked new again as Naomi Goldberg's Los Angeles Modern Dance and Ballet encored its popular Klez-O-Rama concert (Luckman Theatre, Los Angeles, February 24, 1996). The evening-length program features Goldberg's choreography set to Eastern European Jewish klezmer music. At times joyous, at times solemn, the music makes a fitting backdrop for her choreographic style, a beautifully blended mix of old-world folk dance and contemporary movement with a nod to the lyricism of classical ballet.

Goldberg clearly has an innate sense of the body, both as a sculptural space-shaper and as a conduit for fluid, expressive motion. In Fisherlid four women kneel next to one another, hands cupped or dipping and weaving like the waves of the ocean. They seem to speak only to each other, moving solemnly in a self-contained world. But with thirteen works--plus a group finale--on the program, each dance emerges as a snippet of an idea, without the time to evoke true characters, moods, or emotions; thus the soul of the choreography remains hidden in the movement. But when the finale arrives, the company, relaxed in street clothes, joins hands with community dance groups for an uplifting grapevine circle dance. At last, the synergy begins to sizzle.