Get rid of the belly dancers, and the weekend of dance at The Carriage House has real promise, with moments of wit, grace and raw power heard in the thundering Japanese drum duet that closed out last night's dress rehearsal.
The show is billed as a choreographer's showcase from Groundwerx Dance Theatre, the group that went underground a few years ago but continues to put on performances in its downtown studios. Tonight and tomorrow night, Groundwerx brings its greatest hits to Everett Dance Theatre's East Side home.
Work by Groundwerx director Heather Ahern plays prominently in the lineup, the best of which was a sweeping, muscular solo set to music by local composer Steve Jobe.
Highpoints, include a tipsy, left-footed Strauss waltz from Roger Williams University's Heidi Henderson, a hoot of a piece all about missed cues and misjudgments, but a masterful bit of movement.
Nathan Andary's fleeting, musicless solo, "A Passing Thought," hit the spot, too -- just a few brief gentle curves and crisp spins, a momentary hesitation and -- lights out.
So with so many keepers, why start the night off with a string of such lame belly dance routines? Was this tongue-in-cheek -- or foot-in-mouth? A spoof or serious effort?
The dancers looked like they picked up their moves from the movie Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy. Yes there were gyrating thighs and midriffs, but none of the performers seemed to know what to do with the rest of their bodies, how to pull in the audience, how to tell a story.
It was Ahern who contributed some of the cleverest, most off-beat choreography. In "Tough Love," she and Joan Brazier team up with two cloth dolls, rolling about the stage like two friends at play. As the pace picks up and movement gets more violent, Brazier stomps on her doll, and Ahern's has to administer CPR.
I'd love to have seen Ahern and Brazier work off one another more, though. For most of the piece, they mirror one another's movements.
The two reappear after intermission, looking like Southern belles imprisoned in large metal hoop skirts and strict codes of behavior. They bob and glide about to the saccharine strains of Schumann.
But Ahern was her most impressive when she returned for a storyless solo set to Jobe's grating music, "Marseilles." This was bold, fluid work that filled the space and remained taut for the entire piece.
By contrast, Kathy Gordon Smith's "Loosen Up," for all its feather dips and stretches, seemed to run out of gas. That was set to a Michael Quattro piano score with strains for Debussy, Keith Jarret and George Winston, glittering music with overtones hinting at the Orient.
I loved the way she allowed the choreography unfold with the music, growing more energetic, adding high kicks and swoops. But in the end, it seemed not to know how to break from the sameness of the music.
In the end, it was Indian-inspired dance and the driving drum music from the Boston group Lasandhi that blew eveyone away. It was stylized and folksy, but its strength also lay in its simple, insistent power.
Performances are at 8 tonight and tomorrow at The Carriage House Stage, 7 Duncan Ave. Tickets are $10. Call 831-9479.
