If dancer-choreographer Hae Kyung Lee were to have her own theme park, it would consist of a steady stream of Steve Moshier Muzak, Stephen Bennett's cool lighting, lots of sexy costumes (both diaphanous and skimpy) and a series of postmodern undulations that the Korean American artist would design in order to transport the thrill-seeking audience into her visionary world. A "Lee-ticket," if you will.
Would it succeed? Not always.
Thursday night at Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica, as part of Highways' Asian Pacific American Performance and Visual Art Series, Hae Kyung Lee and Dancers presented four works, three of them premieres, under the banner "Power in the House--Phase II." Overall, the dancers moved with grace and determination; skill was never in question, although Bolshoi corps-style precision was lacking in some of the slow-motion unison. It was the maddening repetition--musical and otherwise--that tended to amble, causing the goose-bump factor to remain in check.
