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The atmosphere was cool Thursday night at the South Dallas Cultural Center, where
Beckles Dancing Company celebrated its ninth season with a program called "Ninth
Spring." If the name was unfamiliar, the style wasn't, as the company once known as Nova Dancing Company is still the brainchild of Loris Beckles.

Mr. Beckles' works dominated the program -- abstract, understated, almost clinical in mood -- with a whiff of drama coming from guest artist Anthony Giddines and the upbeat from the Rhythm Junkies.

The opening -- Full Green/Summer, set to Vivaldi's The Four Seasons -- showed a new side of Mr. Beckles, however, balletic and dreamy. Marisa Garrido, Lonnie J. Hightower III, Stacey Lotten, Tina Mullone-Carter, Odile R. Ponsolle and Cherise Taylor suggested
sprites or butterflies as they spun freely and slowed to a sleepy stop. It was quite pretty, calmer than most ballet versions, but still sensitive to the music.

But Mr. Beckles is better known for favoring shapes and patterns over flowing movement, so much so that in The Lu-Pat Trio/D, the dance seemed like pictures held still and then reshaped.

His musical choice worked well for the first two-thirds of Lu-Pat , with sounds of sticks beating and rain hitting a tin roof. Hayley Blackmon, Mr. Hightower and Consuela Y. Holmes switched directions deftly, paused, and spread arms and legs, with every part of the
body isolated. The effect was something like living architecture, detached.

The use of space, too, added to the emphasis of structure, for as dancers fanned out, they re-alighted at another spot, there to bend, lift arms or stretch in a long horizontal arabesque.

Strangely, that clinical element had its own fascination, while the more physically active last third of Lu-Pat lost its steam.

The Unit/Allen Dances was
both more dynamic and organic, with more curves to the arms and back and an occasional leap and turn. Eight dancers, in odd white outfits that looked from the back like the torsos of giant insects, handled the complex jazz rhythms with admirable clarity.

Compared with the abstract and thoughtful work of Mr. Beckles, Mr. Giddines' two dances were high drama. Smack, Every Moment After featured him as a man coming apart under the dreary temptation of crack cocaine. Both stiff and floundering, he could not keep his eyes off the pipes lying on the ground, eventually sliding into a stupor.

His Nina Oh Nina, set to Nina Simone's "I Put a Spell on You," flowed like sails swirling with the rush of the tide, images that came from both Martha Graham and Alvin Ailey. In long, full dress, Ms. Mullone-Carter moved like silk.

The Rhythm Junkies perked up the energy level, having the time of their life.


E-mail msputnam@comcast.net

Beckles Dancing Company continues Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., South Dallas Cultural
Center, 3400 S. Fitzhugh Ave., $10. Call 214-559-3993.

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