DANCE REVIEW : Bayanihan Philippine Company at Royce Hall

By now, the components of a program by the Bayanihan Philippine Dance Company are as predictable as they are welcome.

Whatever the changes from tour to tour, there will always be suites depicting Muslim, European and aboriginal traditions, graceful deployments of skirts and shawls, deft manipulation of spears and banners, diverting feats of balance.

Sooner or later, dancers will step lightly over and between pairs of poles that are being vigorously beaten together and on the floor. And, of course, a princess wearing cloth of gold and a glittering headdress will eventually ride onstage on a bamboo litter in majestic profile.

Currently on its 11th American tour, Bayanihan did not disappoint Thursday in Royce Hall, UCLA--though, as always, the company’s fast-moving, hyper-accessible, variety-show format allowed only the barest suggestion of the dances’ social contexts.

Over the years, choreographer Lucrezia Reyes Urtula has refined her ability to combine many varied specialties in a single suite and reach an exciting conclusion without relying on speed, hard-sell technique or other obvious ploys.

Urtula also knows how to make the simplest actions and tableaux theatrically satisfying, how to fill a stage with only six dancers and how to create spatial appositions as striking as the bold patterns on the company’s tribal costumes.

Performed with great warmth, the Thursday program boasted lilting dances for women--their arms tracing graceful figures overhead as their feet stamped out percussive accents. There were also quirky character dances inspired by the song-rhythms of jungle birds, loping combat dances, fishermen netting a slippery young woman and and the inevitable lady balancing 10 pots on her head.

Although the contrast between amplified music and natural sound often proved jarring, the level of musicianship remained, predictably, high--particularly in such percussion displays as the “Wild Plumage” suite and the “Paraw-Paraw” finale.

The Bayanihan company appears tonight at 8 in Beckman Auditorium, Caltech, then gives two performances on Sunday (at 2 and 8 p.m.) in Ambassador Auditorium.