‘Angels’: A Celestial Parade in Slow Motion

It’s not that angels have ever really disappeared--at least not the kind we imagine to have wings, announce death and shadow our every move. But they do seem to be having a rather high-profile run in the ‘90s.

Making its contribution, Iona Pear Dance Theatre brought “The Mythology of Angels” to the Shannon Center for the Performing Arts at Whittier College on Saturday night. Created by artistic director Cheryl Flaharty with her 10 dancers in 1992, the piece has been performed yearly since then throughout Hawaii, where they are based. This was the company’s first tour outside the islands.

Put together in many smoothly flowing scenes, the work seemed not so much a “Mythology of Angels” as a pageant of angels who paraded at butoh tempo (slow motion) but with more set rhythms than the more erratic butoh style. Almost always, the emphasis was purely visual: Angel after angel proceeded across the stage or was sedately pulled--on moving carpet, a rolling platform or, in one case, a chariot--wearing an impressive array of richly colored or tastefully pale draperies. Wings came in pure white and multicolored feathers--these were truly works of art--or they were black and stiff as a pinned butterfly.

Lengths of sheer white fabric fluttered in the wind, over and around nearly still bodies, to an endless assortment of portentous New Age chants by Enya, Peter Gabriel, Ennio Morricone and many more--the kind of music they play in movies when sunlight bursts through clouds and the presence of God is indicated. Sometimes the spell of butoh timing was broken with bits of dancing or mime: At the end of a jejune duet by “angels of war,” they shed gold lame armor (a fashionable peace?).

Often the costumes and poses were stunning, but no inner life of these angels animated the proceedings. The piece seemed like a tableau vivant that drifted. But then, it’s possible that these angels were just working in mysterious ways.