Dance Reviews : R Dance Company Performs at Westside Academy

The majority of the dances on R Dance Company’s bill “From Within” Saturday at the Westside Academy of Dance featured the choreography and dancing of R Executive Directors Robert Whidbee and Roberta Wolin.

Maintaining a magnetic presence throughout their various dances, the two earned their places as the showcased performers of the program. As choreographers, however, they are, well, pretty good dancers.

Wolin moved gamely in her own “Resolute,” a tortured-individual-versus-the-cruel-world ditty complete with fetal position poses. Her “The Edge,” a lament about homelessness, was built around acrobatic outings by Whidbee and Michael Skelton, but its supporting cast of 14 did little more than clutter the stage.

Whidbee and Wolin’s best moments, in terms of both choreography and dancing, came during a Strindbergian duet called “Time to Rend.” Here deft motions of estrangement underscored the emotional truth of a familiar narrative.

Conversely, Whidbee’s “Shades,” a treatise on female behavior danced unenthusiastically by five women, got bogged down in prosaic gestures perhaps meant to represent inner conflict.

Guest choreographer Zoot, who mixes Chaplinesque mime with contortionist-like isolations, provided the evening’s welcome wild card when he and Suzee Goldman performed a surreal doctor and monster creation scenario called “Adam.” Unfortunately, his portion of the program lasted only a few minutes out of nearly two hours.