Ohio Ballet.

Joyce Theater February 21-26, 1995

There's a refreshing diversity of cultures and physiques among the nineteen dancers of Ohio Ballet, and its repertoire represents a broad range of choreographic styles. Artistic director Heinz Poll and the late Thomas R. Skelton (cofounder and lighting wizard) have a reputation for challenging the personable, hardworking troupe with adventurous modern and postmodern ballets, and the talented dancers had mastered almost everything in their Joyce Theater programs.

Laura Dean's architecturally simple Earth requires massive expenditures of physical energy for its high-kicking motifs, which are repeated relentlessly by ten dancers dashing along their geometric paths at breakneck speed. Fortunately, there are occasional breaks in the aerobic workout, when one, then two, then finally all sink to the ground to remind you of the ecological "message" of the piece. Still, by the finale the dancers' eyes have glazed over in exhaustion.

Lucinda Childs's 1994 Trilogies (a New York premiere) looks odd, done with balletic port de bras instead of the emotionally neutral directness her own dancers would give it. And apparently some of this cast hadn't quite mastered the tricky, odd meters of the finale of its three sections, resulting in some ragged unisons.

Charles Moulton's 1994 Another Way (also new here), set to a suite of offbeat songs by a friend, the late Arthur Russell, is an unremittingly energetic, choreographically inscrutable, jazz-pop explosion of limb-flung movement. It tries to hold our attention with sheer physical quantity and endless repetitiveness. Its saving grace is that the dancers look as if they enjoy doing it.

Company member Luc Vanier's 1995 Square Play depicts a society of nine androids in hooded unitards, bobbing and capering to a rhythmic score by Libby Larsen; it's a clear and capable effort. Tiny, agile powerhouse Linda Hymes excelled as a rebel who separates herself from the group but ends up diving headfirst into their midst.

The highlight of the season was a smart restaging by Anna Markard and Airi Hynninen of Kurt Jooss's 1932 Big City, the simple fable of a young girl, seduced by decadent high society, who foolishly spurns the love of her working-class beau when enticed by the seductive wiles of an affluent libertine and ends up forsaken. Danced to a live two-piano performance of Alexander Tansman's score, the production captures the innocence of its time without sacrificing clean, precise, dancing. Sturdy Vanier as the melancholy laborer; Stephani Achuff, the lovely, wide-eyed innocent; elegantly angular Paul Ghiselin, the philandering rake; and the entire company of workers and dance-hall habitues look wonderful.

For dessert on each of the two programs Poll served up two frothy pop-music ballets, which have become sine qua non for regional companies since the Broadway success of Twyla Tharp's Nine Sinatra Songs. Eight by Benny Goodman, a suite of fox-trots and cutie-pie ensemble routines, and In Full Swing, an inauthentic take on jitterbugging with allusions to hip-hop, may be audience-grabbers in heartland America but miss the finesse of the classy Goodman arrangements and get performances that are way too sugary.

Only in his 1974 Summer Night, to Chopin, does Poll's artistry really sparkle. The detail paid to nuances of dynamics and phrasing by both choreographer and dancers (Yumelia Garcia with David Shimotakahara and Xochitl Tejeda de Cerda with Kyongho Kim) gives fresh life and distinction to lyric movement that might have been just ordinary in less skillful, caring hands. All in all, its blend of adventurous and safe choices makes Ohio Ballet an asset of which Cleveland can be proud.