Madrid en Danza 1997.

VARIOUS THEATERS AND PERFORMANCE SPACES, MADRID MAY 7-JUNE 29, 1997

REVIEWED BY LAURA KUMIN

Madrid en Danza, a contemporary dance festival that has evolved to include a variety of dance styles, celebrated its twelfth anniversary this year. Twenty-seven companies, programmed over six weeks in seven different venues, resulted in a hodgepodge that glutted the city with dance of uneven quality, including the following highlights.

Indian classical dance at the Teatro Albeniz presented the Manipuri, Kuchipudi, and Odissi dance styles, seldom performed in Spain, followed by a revised version of flamenco star Antonio Canales's Gitano ("Gypsy"), which played to sold-out audiences at the same theater last autumn.

Ballet de la Comunidad de Madrid Victor Ullate occupied the same theater for another ten days. Thisi ensemble of fine dancers gave a surprisingly lackluster interpretation of Hans van Manen's Grosse Fuge and closed the program with an insouciant performance of Ullate's lengthy Jaleos. A company premiere, Maurice Bejart's Sonata for Three, inspired by French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre's novel No Exit, was danced with proper existential angst by Victor Jimenez, Ana Noya, and Rosa Royo.

Ballet Clasico Mediterraneo, directed by Fernando Bujones, owed much of its success to its guest stars. Paris Opera Ballet's Agnes Letestu and Karl Paquette shone in the Esmeralda and Le Corsaire pas de deux. Pennsylvania Ballet powerhouse Jouquin de Luz was outstanding in Bujones's Jazz Swing, which, although it made the best use of the company as a whole, was a blatant imitation of George Balanchine's Who Cares?

Angel Rolas and Carlos Rodriguez's Nuevo Ballet Espanol presented an ambitious program, Canela y Fuego ("Cinnamon and Fire"). The choreographers, both excellent performers, along with the impressive Natalia Ferrandiz, try to encompass a variety of Spanish dance styles and nontraditional subject matter. Musa ("Muse") depicts a diva enslaved by her own image, while Tanguedia strives to evoke the emotional climate of the tango. The choreographers are talented, and with some judicious artistic direction this promising company could go far.

Iberica de Danza takes Spanish dance in new directions in Erase una Vez ("Once Upon a Time"). Company directors Violeta Ruiz and Manuei Segovia, with guest choreographers Joaquin Ruiz and Maria Jose Ruiz (whose contribution was one of the high points of an elegant evening), explored the roots of Spanish folkloric, historical, and flamenco dance with good taste and imagination.

Madrid's 10 & 10 Danza, directed by choreographers Monica Runde and Pedro Berdayes, offered a program titled "Little Tales." These three short pieces, including Runde's moving Petrus, demonstrated the company's ability to connect meaningfully with audiences in smaller venues while maintaining the themes of emotional conflict and power struggles that characterize its repertory. A choreographer whose statemenb are often intimate and self-contained, Elena Cordoba created courageously sincere and direct solos for herself, Maria Jose Pire, and Elena Alonso in Cantos. Gilles Jobin's Trilogie demonstrated his skill as a performer encompassing theater and dance to paint portraits of three distinct characters, all of them the fruit of a fertile imagination that doesn't hesitate to use mordant humor to make a point.

In Espacios Insolitos ["Unusual Spaces"), site-specific commissions featured in Madrid en Danza since 1992, Enrique Cabrera made dramatic use of space by taking over the Principe Pio railway station and its luminous vestibule. Surprised commuters found the company swinging trom ropes suspended from the ceiling before dispersing throughout the spacious hall. Carmen Werner chose a historical military headquarters, and finished the piece with her dancers drenched by industrial hoses.

Madrid en Danza 1997 seemed to be more of a convenient agglomeration of already existing commitments than a coherent event. Clear criteria and judicious programming are needed to restore a profile to Madrid's only dance festival.