Dance Reviews : Rose Polsky’s Choreography at Santa Monica College

Listening to the taped voice of a woman in her 80s happily recounting small, charmed moments from her long-ago courtship by a tailor was the high point of Rose Polsky’s “Ida Stayed With Me,” performed Friday night at Studio Stage, Santa Monica College. The dancing, by Polsky’s four-member company and nine guests, was another matter--dated in style and threadbare in imaginative resources.

Polsky’s own solo to the elderly woman’s recollections tediously interprets every phrase (quivering hand to lips and uptilted face to illustrate “I was dying to be kissed”). Based on the lives of elderly people Polsky has met, the piece illustrates the tough, brave road they’ve traveled. She peoples this path with strolling lovers (who walk a tightrope at one point--get it?), a child (who works her way through every conceivable activity from hopscotch to basketball), a debilitated middle-aged woman (who dangles her arms and looks morose), a woman who shakes with sickness, a man (W. Rex Comer) who goes mad and drops out of the (literal) human race.

Comer’s mobile, troubled face and the quiet intensity of Elizabeth Chandler’s performance as the lover kept things from bogging down entirely. Polsky’s use of the pressure of a hand as a bearer of comfort was one of the stronger points of her choreography. But the earnest, plodding look of the piece seemed better suited to the populist, undemanding setting of a community recreation center than a college series called “Experimental Dance.”