DANCE REVIEW : Ballet Folklorico de Mexico Amazes at Shrine Auditorium

The classic symbols of Mexican identity are, of course, the serpent and the eagle: creatures portrayed at the very start of the Ballet Folklorico de Mexico performance Thursday in Shrine Auditorium. However, for Amalia Hernandez’s spectacular company (in Los Angeles through Sunday afternoon), the iguana and the deer may be equally significant.

The iguana turns up in “Tarima de Tixtla” at a moment when the whole 6,000-seat theater is vibrating from the energy of 12 couples furiously fanning themselves with scarfs while pounding the stage with percussive, high-velocity footwork. At just the point where it doesn’t seem possible for the dancing to become more galvanic, one man and then the others begin to twist and slither on the floor, surrounding the women, eyes popping and tongues a-quiver.

It’s an amazing metamorphosis, one that makes us suddenly reappraise the corps dancers as individuals while reminding us of the deep links to the animal kingdom that underpin so much Mexican folk art.

The Yaqui Deer Dance, of course, represents the noblest expression of this kinship, suggesting not merely animal motion but a different way of experiencing the world. Other Mexican and Mexican-American companies present narrative versions ending with hunters killing the deer, but Ballet Folklorico chooses to offer its “Danza del Venado” as a ritual of coexistence.

This decision is daring--the usual death throes obviously create a more dramatic conclusion than the group pose seen on Thursday--but Hernandez has never exactly been timid about making a personal statement with this company. In her new “Feria de Carnival en Tlaxcala,” she takes her biggest risk of all.

Subtitled “Folklore of America,” this extended suite attempts to sample the overlapping cultural influences in contemporary Mexico and so rejects any pretense of ethnic purity. We hear a tango, a polka and even rock ‘n’ roll. We see improbably elaborate and anachronistic costumes from some sci-fi Mayan Melrose. We follow an archetypal Don Juan parable (complete with a puppet show on the seven deadly sins) about a seducer carried off to hell. And we are blitzed by wave after wave of decorative, exhausting group dances.

Unfortunately, the mix never really ignites, but it proves highly revealing as it sputters from one effect to another--objectifying the passion for theater that has always shaped Hernandez’s approach to folklore. For all her anthropological research, she is essentially a social muralist and in “Feria de Carnival” she creates a broad panorama of entertainments for the modern campesino . From a diminutive vaudeville-style automobile to an expansive bull-ring procession, she embraces them all, and her finale confirms that even funerals can be quite a show.

Obviously, the program has its share of traditional pleasures--ranging from the formal depictions of pre-Columbian ceremonies in “Tenochtitlan” and “The Concheros,” to the explosive Tlacotalpan and Jalisco fiestas with their exciting live music (in contrast to the over-amplified tapes that accompany some of the other suites). But even here, Hernandez’s stylization of her folk materials proves distinctive and characteristically bold.

Ballet Folklorico is, indisputably, her vision of Mexican culture (not just Mexican dance). Other valuable approaches exist, but this is the one with enough heat and savvy to make the uninitiated into aficionados--to send dazzled, middle-class Anglos scurrying off to bookstores and record shops and travel agencies. Even to other folkloric companies, too.

Obviously, Latinos identify with the company for different and, doubtless, more profound reasons, but to some of us, the appeal of Ballet Folklorico remains as irrational and overwhelming as first love. It pulled us out of our predefined ethnic identities into a magnificent civilization that spoke to us more deeply than we could have guessed. It still does.

Political footnote: At the end of the performance, embattled Mayor Tom Bradley presented Hernandez with a city commendation--and was given a mask by tour co-producer Julio Solorzano “to ward off evil spirits.” He seemed very appreciative.