Too much message for Moses’ fine dancers

Some choreographers never learn: There’s only so much you can cram into a single program, even if it is your annual season. That generalization applied to Robert Moses, a veteran choreographer now in the midst of an engagement at Dance Mission Theater, where I saw the show Saturday, May 13.

“Trick Bags/Trap Doors/Painted Corners” is the title of Moses’ premiere triptych, all danced by the members of Robert Moses’ Kin. The parts of the work have been choreographed by Moses, Terence Marling and Latanya d. Tigner, and Moses requested that they all deal with the problems faced by children of different races growing up together and the problems of inherited advantage.

In his own work, Moses the ideologue and social philosopher sometimes does battle with Moses the choreographer. When he allows his six wonderful performers (Norma Fong, Crystaldawn Bell, Vincent Chavez, Katherine Disenhof, Byron Roman and Dazaun Soleyn) to dance to the commissioned score by PC Muñoz , there’s also a cataclysmic exchange of energy. Moses favors duets this time, and they are weighty and floor-bound and highly gestural. Balances are keen; this is one of the few modern companies in which the dancers wear ballet shoes.

But then the Muñoz score goes away and we get a recorded conversation with black women on race. Moses’ choreography can’t replicate the conversation, and it makes little attempt to reflect the speech patterns. What happens in so much political dance happens here, too: The message doesn’t complement the movement; it fights with it for your attention. Fortunately, there’s a climactic stunner for Bell that involves verbal repetition that comes at you with hypnotic

force. In his “J,V, X and Z,” Marling, a former dancer and director of Hubbard Street Dance 2, achieves a contrast with Moses. The mood is light and playful as five dancers (Soleyn sits this one out), dressed in the bare minimum, sprawl on the floor, deliver a gestural alphabet and groove to baroque music. Unfortunately, there’s also a voiceover, which concludes with a mini-sermon on poverty, just to make us feel guilty.

The portion of Latanya d. Tigner’s piece I saw (before back pain shortened my visit) suggested something different from the above. Tigner evokes a tribal, ritual feeling, marked by prominent rhythms, circle dances and chosen victims.

What really bogged down the evening were the extended sequences with 18 of the Draft Dancers, all in white. They are amateur performers trained by Moses; and their simplistic, dullish choreography (unison promenades, stiff walks) was rendered cohesively, but without much inflection. To watch a couple attempt a combination a few minutes after seeing the pros do it is disheartening. There is a place for this kind of interminable exhibition, but that place isn’t an annual season.

Steve Disenhof Dazaun Soleyn and Norma Fong of Robert Moses’ Kin in “Trick Bags/Trap Doors/Painted Corners.”

Steve Disenhof Norma Fong (left), Byron Roman, Dazaun Soleyn, Crystaldawn Bell, Katherine Disenhof and Vincent Chavez in “Trick Bags/Trap Doors/ Painted Corners.”