Ballet Pacifica Falters Between Old, New Styles

There’s a place where contemporary ballet companies can get marooned between ballet’s expressive prettiness and the razor-sharp attitudes of a new classical language. With its latest program, which opened Friday night at the Irvine Barclay Theatre, Ballet Pacifica seemed to be claiming that tepid territory as its own.

On the lyrical part of the landscape, two Rick McCullough works contained the outlines of melancholy without making it particularly evocative. “No Less Than Every,” (1992), to Shostakovich, was well-danced, with the most accomplished lines in the company sometimes emerging. Last year’s “Nova!” turned an eventful Benjamin Britten score (“Sinfonia da Requiem”) into a backdrop for monomania, with one movement theme--curving forward and opening up decoratively--getting a thorough workout.

William Soleau’s “Between People” (1993), to a John Adams score, took place on a stark, open stage and seemed to be pursuing the edgy “we’ve got ballet game” attitude of William Forsythe’s work. It’s a style that requires more technical precision and risk-taking chops than many Ballet Pacifica dancers can muster.

“Successful Worry,” newly commissioned by Ann Marie DeAngelo, leaned toward sketch comedy, at best an awkward genre for ballet dancers. They were used to illustrate DeAngelo’s text (spoken by Michel Gervais at a podium onstage) about a “dot” (Erin Holmes) who is briefly in love with a “squiggle” (Spencer Gavin) and a “line” (Viktor Uygan).

Yes, a far cry from Giselle’s Albrecht-Hilarion dilemma. It was a kind of “geometry is destiny” that didn’t even play out at that level. After a gimmicky punch line--the “dot” invents the “dot-com”--the plot took muddled high-tech turns, as dancers tossed in disco steps, acrobatics and the kitchen sink.