Manuel Mendoza

Limón Dance Company reenacted the birth of modern dance Saturday night, reaching back to its roots for a trio of works marked by old-fashioned elegance.

DARNELL RENEE/Special Contributor

Limón Dance Company performed Saturday at the Latino Cultural Center.

Celebrating its 60th anniversary, the seminal company paid tribute to its late founders, Jose Limón and his mentor, Doris Humphrey, in a program at the Latino Cultural Center that was infrequently exciting but always pretty.

The evening opened with the premiere of a revival, Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias, based on the famous Lorca poem and choreographed by Ms. Humphrey in 1946, just as Limón Dance was getting started.

On a spare set suggesting the confines of a ring, three dancers played out the heroism and tragedy of a bullfighter with low-key melodrama. Roel Seeber depicted the masculinity that defined Mr. Limón's own dancing style, proudly lifting his legs and swinging his arms. Kristen Foote and Roxane D'Orléans Juste, dressed in gorgeous if funereally colored gowns, stood by, stared and recited lines from the poem. With the dancing minimal, a formal theatricality took over.

Both the company's connection to ballet and its rejection of it were apparent. While ballet attempts to deny gravity, Ms. Humphrey gave in to it, a first step on the road to the modern sensibility. That tension echoed in Norman Lloyd's score – atonality battling romanticism (and losing) – beautifully played live by pianist Kenneth Hamrick and percussionist Steven Solook.

Mr. Limón's signature piece, The Moor's Pavane (1949), followed with even older origins: Renaissance court dancing, down to the thick, colorful and fluffy ball gowns. Inspired by Othello, Pavane encapsulated the tragic story of Shakespeare's Moor (Francisco Ruvalcaba) and his wife (Ms. Juste).

At first, the couple and their "friends" (Mr. Seeber and Ryoko Kudo) held hands in a circle and moved together fluidly. But soon, separated by gender, the women stood aside while the men engaged in hand-to-hand combat.

The night ended with a suite from A Choreographic Offering (1964), Mr. Limón's tribute to a dozen dances Ms. Humphrey made before her death in 1958. The gowns were gone, replaced by sleek and clingy two-tone purple costumes. The choreography was larger and more balletic, 12 dancers grandly gesturing, forming lines and circles to move in concert, leaping before falling to the ground.

Under the direction of former dancer Carla Maxwell since the late 1970s, the company has continued to choreograph and commission new works. It might have made for a more well-rounded program to contrast a newer piece with these classics.

Though Limón Dance has been surpassed by the Twyla Tharps, Mark Morrises and Bill T. Joneses of the modern-dance world, it was instructive to get a taste of where it all began.

E-mail mmendoza@dallasnews.com

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