Moiseyev at Strathmore: Balletic, Athletic, Brilliant

There was one Pushkin, one Dostoyevsky, one Tchaikovsky -- and one Igor Moiseyev. That, at least, is how the Moiseyev Dance Company sees it. And it's right. The folk dancing institution that Moiseyev founded in Russia 70 years ago -- and of which he was a guiding force until his death in November at age 101 -- became one of the most loved and influential dance companies in the world.

As was made brilliantly clear at Thursday's performance at Strathmore, his brand of folk dancing is not the amateur rustic variety of back roads and county fairs. Moiseyev, a former member of Moscow's Bolshoi Ballet, took the dances of his country's harvest festivals, of Tatar villages and the herdsmen on the steppes, and reinvigorated them with crisp geometric formations and the buoyancy and precision of classical technique.

There is no better example of this than "Summer," the evening's opener, in which dozens of dancers stream across the stage in a winding daisy chain, bouncing lightly to the rhythms of an upbeat folk tune, in an expression of collective energy at once resolute and deeply charming. When eventually they reel off into two spinning wheels, each prancing foot catching air at the same moment, each head held just so, each face identically beaming, you think of minutely calibrated watchworks. These dancers must bear them in their innards.

This piece, a Moiseyev classic, works a curious spell: To watch it is to wonder at its perfection, which is not icy and mechanical but elevating, like good manners. You wish everyone, every human endeavor, could be so.

What dance is there, if not Moiseyev dance? Ballet? Oh, pish posh, what a mess it seems in comparison!

This was, of course, Igor Moiseyev's thought as well. He had no desire to replicate rural celebrations or to approximate the abilities of apple-cheeked babushkas. His goal was to use national customs as a jumping-off point for his own choreographic imagination. And to make the dancing as respected and rigorous as that of the world-class classical company where he got his start.

He patterned his group after ballet companies in many ways. By dance standards, his troupe is immense, with 200 dancers. And like the Bolshoi and St. Petersburg's Kirov Ballet, the Moiseyev Dance Company is fed by its own school, with a dance curriculum tailored to its needs. The company's popular appeal, like that of the more established ballet ensembles, was recognized early on by the Soviet government as a prime propaganda tool. The Strathmore appearances Thursday and last night kicked off a two-month national tour, which marks the 50th anniversary of its first American appearance. The company boasts that that 1958 tour was also the first time a Russian dance group of any kind had performed on these shores.

There are limits to the Moiseyev formula, however. A certain schmaltz creeps into some pieces, particularly the "Egyptian Dance" for a group of hip-thrusting women in spangled gowns. A disco beat kicked in (all the music was taped, some easier on the ears than others) and the hipbones feverishly upped the ante. We give!

Better the frank athletic prowess in "Dance of Argentinean Cowboys," a tour de force for three men outdoing one another in percussive, boot-stomping solos, or the sinuous backbends in "Gypsies," a Romanian-derived dance that had nothing to say but a lot to see, namely the sweeping fluidity of the women's arms and their liquid spines. I thought the men's candy-colored blouses worked against the mood here, but spectacle is part of the Moiseyev effect.

Sometimes it's subtler than others. The grand finale included no women and was costumed in a monotone of blue, for it was a tribute to the "good spirit" of sailors. But "Yablotchko," as this simple and heart-filling work was called, had a profound emotional power like that of the miraculous "Summer." In its kick line (not since "La Cage Aux Folles" have you seen so many male limbs firing to the skies in unison) and interweaving patterns, it celebrated impressive human dynamics, the satisfying effect of unity, of everyone pulling together.

This is a particularly poignant quality now, as the company moves on despite its founder's death. Though Moiseyev had long ceded day-to-day control of his company to others, he remained involved in its affairs even during the lengthy hospital confinement that preceded his death. Those connected with the company say his passing falls hard on the troupe, which had long anticipated that this tour would be especially celebratory, given the significance of the anniversary. (It is also the company's 15th tour to the United States.)

In an interview earlier this week, Director Elena Shcherbakova expressed the company's dedication to Moiseyev's ethic, and said her primary goal was not to change a thing.

"He left this for all the people in the world, and our company needs to keep everything that Mr. Moiseyev did, in the form that he conceived it, and not change anything. Every step has stayed the way it was as he set it." As Moiseyev himself had started doing, Shcherbakova said the company will bring folk dances from other cultures into its repertoire.

"But we can't have a full-time choreographer like Moiseyev again," she said. "That is nowhere in the world. I don't think in the next 100 years you'll find anyone like that." And she's right.