‘Feet Speak’ Delivers an ‘Unstructured’ Bill

The new “Feet Speak” series at Occidental College co-opted shopworn Dance Kaleidoscope methodology on Friday with a program of ill-assorted, locally based artists assigned a snappy, meaningless title (“Structured/Unstructured”) and set forth to be what the program notes called “outrageous, creative, challenging, provocative and eclectic” without much quality control.

The indispensable moments came on film: two haunting, adventuresome shorts for British television directed by Margaret Williams and choreographed by Victoria Marks. “Mothers and Daughters” defined its subject through eloquent positional and photographic compositions involving non-dancing families of women, renewing the postmodern maxim that anything can be dance with enough imagination behind it. “Outside In” developed exhilarating spatial contexts for the CandoCo company, which brings together dancers in and out of wheelchairs. Both films deserve the widest possible audience.

Other signs of hope: “Do Not Sit or Stand,” a rare foray into choreographic sobriety from Anne Goodman and Jeffrey Grimaldo of Naked With Shoes, a duo normally found on the cutting edge of the cute and perky. Here, however, the subject of an obsessive relationship yielded a dramatic duet full of potent implications. Dorcas Orman’s gutsy performance of Heidi Duckler’s familiar “Mr. Westinghouse” (with Harry Gilbert on cello) also helped invigorate the evening.

Unfortunately, Monica Favand’s thoughtful solo “Big Cheese” belonged completely to its production values--the nightmarish environmental slides and spectacular junkyard costume--and seemed essentially a puppet fable in disguise. Licia Perea’s “Remote Foundations” delivered a few clever passages in which the choreographer and Adrienne Clancy seemed to rewrite the rules of gravity. However, most of the piece focused on arid, endless feel-the-walls explorations executed at the very back of the stage.

* The “Feet Speak” series continues Friday and Saturday with “Percussion Jam.” Keck Theater, Occidental College, 1600 Campus Road, Eagle Rock. $5-$10. (213) 259-2922.