By Paul Hertelendy 
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of Sept. 2-9, 2011
                                                                  Vol. 14, No. 11
            There is a lot to like about the Zhukov Dance Theatre, a compact multi-media operation that intermittently pops up with stimulating surprises. In his hour-long program “Dreams Recycled” at Z Space in the Mission District, choreographer-director Yuri Zhukov puts his troupe of seven  through infinitely pliable modern-dance moves, supplementing it with live art work, film and prerecorded music.
            It’s as if Zhukov had set down the scenario from a remembered dream, complete with nonsequiturs and flights of imagination. Plus falls, crawls, and more bends of body than on a Russian slalom course.
            While the program is dominated by five strong, taut male dancers, in the middle comes a fetching romantic sequence for the two women (Kajta Björner, Allie Papazian) in a coordinated duet, with autumnal forest images on film and a languid orchestral score by Arvo Pärt. It comes across like the eye of a hurricane, surrounded by the fast and furious male group dominating everything else in their whirlwind dynamism.
            Most unusual is the live art work blended with dance. A long paper sheet is rolled out by a sprawled dancer who draws an endless canvas of abstraction while moving, writhing, twisting on stage. Later, the enigmatic piece turns nightmarish as the ensemble tears the art into little pieces in a fit of cathartic violence.
            In another arresting segment, the men, near naked, dance on a stage lit only by tiny portable spotlights, giving glimpses of the bodies, and leaving the rest to one’s own dreams and fantasies. It was like a sneak midnight entry into a museum of Greek statuary------only they are all in motion.
            Narration by the dancers, for once, was effective, filling part of the soundscape with brief prerecorded tales of their own dreams, drawing them immutably into a communal creative grouping.
            Much of Zhukov’s choreography is dominated by intensity and stress, perhaps reflecting the pressures of urban life and sagging economy. I find a truth in his work that is very timely; I only regret that his four-year-old ensemble only seems to pop up during the summers, when clearly a potential is there for more in-season perpetuity. Certainly, the dancers are mobile, fearless and meticulously prepared------no mere summer filler!
            The fortyish Zhukov, who hails from St. Petersburg, Russia, is a dancer who has choreographed for several major international companies.
          Zhukov Dance Theatre, modern dance company of seven, Sept. 1-3 at Z Space, 450 Florida St., San Francisco. For info: (800) 838-3006, or go online. 

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           Paul Hertelendy has been covering the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with relish -- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
    These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly) will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local artists as well.
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