Review

Review/Dance; Ted Shawn's Legacy: Men Tough and Tender

Ted Shawn, who would have been 100 years old on Monday, made remarkable contributions to American dance. Not the least of them was the way he campaigned to have dance accepted as a respectable career for men.

His efforts were honored at the Joyce Theater on Tuesday night when the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival presented "Men Dancers: The Ted Shawn Legacy," a program of old and new dances for men directed by Robby Barnett, with Norton Owen as artistic adviser. They proved well worth seeing for their historical interest and contemporary relevance.

Two were major works by Shawn himself. He created "Kinetic Molpai" in 1935 for his Men Dancers, the all-male troupe he directed from 1933 to 1940. A celebration of struggle, death and rebirth inspired by ancient Greek ceremonials, "Kinetic Molpai" retained considerable power in this slightly abridged version in which Clay Taliaferro led an ensemble that included Jim Blanc, Felix Blaska, Paul Dennis, Yoav Kaddar, Peter Kope, Rick Merrill, Peter Pucci and Gordon F. White.

With its scenes of conflict followed by triumphant surges, "Kinetic Molpai" was bold in outline. Although some sequences were almost self-consciously strenuous, the choreography's pictorial effects were impressive because of the way Shawn divided the cast into contrapuntal groups to express opposition and harmony.

Barton Mumaw, a member of the original cast, helped coach the revival and was in the audience. Jess Meeker's score for two pianos -- music as assertive as the choreography -- was played by John Sauer and Mr. Meeker, the musical director for Shawn's Men Dancers and one of America's most respected dance accompanists.

Mr. Meeker also played the Respighi music for "O Brother Sun and Sister Moon," a portrait of St. Francis that Shawn choreographed for himself in 1931. As interpreted by Stuart Hodes, a former member of the Martha Graham Dance Company, this was a quiet solo. Looking ascetic in a monk's robe, Mr. Hodes bowed low to earth, reached toward heaven and, without histrionics, displayed his palms and, by implication, the saint's stigmata.

Shawn was lyrical in "O Brother Sun," forceful in "Kinetic Molpai." Since the 30's, the program's offerings suggested, male choreography has emphasized forcefulness, rather than lyricism. Heroic steps dominated "The Unsung," Jose Limon's elegy for American Indian leaders. Mr. Kaddar and Mr. Pucci were boisterous rivals in "Brothers," choreographed by Daniel Ezralow and David Parsons.