Lyon Opera Ballet.

Lyon Opera Ballet Joyce Theater September 27-October 2,1994 Reviewed by Gus Solomons jr

Lyon Opera Ballet brought us a French-American bill: one ballet each by French choreographers Angelin Preljocaj and Maguy Marin and two by American Ralph Lemon--but, oddly, none by its new American resident choreographer, Bill T. Jones. Dating from 1979 to 1992, the dances nicely showcased the company's stylistic versatility, if not always its choreographic acumen. Even so, artistic director Yorgos Loukos is to be admired for daring to choose provocative work by challenging modernists for the repertoire.

Marin's 1979 Contrastes portrays little, pursed, gray people, trapped in their pedestrian rut, slouching to work with briefcases, paper-pushing on a long bench and lit by harsh fluorescent lights that glare in our eyes. Contrasting with these dreary ciphers is an aristocratic pair, wining and dining by candlelight, and ignoring the naked couple that rolls off their fancy table and does on the floor what naked couples do. It's an amusing sketch, which gives the dancers room to exercise their well-developed theatrical personas.

The most successful composition is Larmes Blanches by Preljocaj, who builds phrases from tiny, obsessive gestures: head turn, hip push, tiny sideways hop. After a duet by Nicolas Dufloux and Edmond Russo in virtually extra-sensory unison, four couples in black leather trousers and white ruff led shirts render with crisp clarity the choreographer's finicky articulations, set to baroque music--mathematically structured, geometrically precise, and handsomely visual.

Bogus Pomp, Lemon's 1990 debut work for Lyon, appears to be transitional, moving away from his more narrative earlier works like Folkdances to his current penchant for emotional abstractionism. The swooping release movement gets sucked into the fake emotionalism of Frank Zappa's syrupy orchestral spoof of cliched, over-the-top Hollywood movie scores; the dancers flail themselves into exhaustion trying to match it.

Except for gratuitous lines of dancer dialogue--"Plie deeper!" "We have to do that again"--My Tears Have Been My Meat Night and Day is a far more intriguing exposition of Lemon's current vocabulary. Stan Pressner's warmly dappled light bathes Katherine Maurer's gorgeous layered tunics on the fifteen dancers, whose fast-paced kinetic encounters suggest a desperate, fruitless search for affection, acceptance, emotional sustenance. The uniformly capable dancers have thoroughly assimilated Lemon's style giving it the floppy, high-swinging brio of seasoned postmodernists, They are technically adroit, freshly unmannered, and warmly gracious.

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Janet Bogardus, Joanna Heimbold, and Susan Trout, three women who've known each other since childhood, are Instant Girl. Their On the Run (Dance Theater Workship, September 22-October 2, 1994) is a series of wild and crazy female stereotypes with a twist: little sisters who purposely misbehave because their dad's spankings turn them on, or suburban housewives who spend days getting soused, fantasizing themselves as (oafish) fan dancers, then sobering up for their husbands. Backed by Ed Ratliff's musical combo and a masterfully compiled sound tape by John Huntington, the three are witty and engaging--except when they try to sing--and downright hilarious when they punctuate their skits with highstepping dance parodies of everything from cheerleading to contact improv.

Gus Solomons jr