Cheerful, misshapen, Hedwig Dances’ shared, evening-length work with Cuba’s DanzAbierta is a Frankenstein baby, too charming to be a monster but nevertheless sutured together.
Part travelogue, part joint storytelling, part archetypal treatment of the seasons, the ambitious, expertly performed “Trade Winds/Aires de Cambio” receives its world premiere through Saturday at the Dance Center, then travels to Havana in January for its Cuban debut. Years in the making, it represents a fraught, logistically challenging first step toward artistic collaboration between the two countries — a bit like toddlers’ parallel play. Onstage, the troupes each keep to their own side, alternating sections.
The thematic structure, moving from fall through summer, allowed Hedwig’s Jan Bartoszek and DanzAbierta’s Susana Pous to choreograph separately. It also pretty much guaranteed an upbeat trajectory. Techno dominates the music, by Eme Alfonso, which further lightens the mood, though the score also includes snatches of blues, pop jazz, and ambient noise.
The head-spinning opening, accompanied by rapidly shifting images of both cities, destabilizes rather than introduces. The fall bits aren’t much more helpful, alternating quickly and often so cute they feel trivial: Hedwig mimes playing baseball, and DanzAbierta, flirting on the beach.
That flirtation takes on a dark edge, however, as DanzAbierta moves into winter. One woman proves unlucky in love and the others literally rain on her parade: Her rival sprinkles her with a watering can. Though the four men have a terrific low-flying section, roiling like seeds in a green arcadia, the storytelling becomes cartoonish when the unlucky woman arrives with a bouquet of sunflowers and the others play keep-away with them.
The seasonal theme probably works best for Hedwig — at least in Chicago, where Cuba’s seasons are a mystery. Once Hedwig launches into winter, reprising last April’s “Drift deep, loose,” the piece feels anchored. The first and only serious section, it forms a sharp contrast with Hedwig’s deftly comic spring section, which involves a carpet of bright green fake grass. A man impulsively buries his face in the soles of a woman’s feet, upended; another man undertakes an inexorable seduction, merely walking.
Things look up for both companies in spring. DanzAbierta’s facsimile of being in the sea, rocked by waves, is wonderfully convincing, rollicking and buoyant as a woman negotiates precarious perches on the backs of men crouched or kneeling.
The finale, set in a jungle paradise, brings all 12 dancers — 6 from each company — together in a circle dance. It’s a shame they couldn’t have met more often in the making of “Winds/Aires,” which can feel fractured, at odds.
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When: 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday
Where: Dance Center of Columbia College, 1306 S. Michigan Ave.
Running time: 70 minutes
Tickets: $26-$30 at 312-369-8330 or colum.edu/dance_center