Dance

Twyla Tharp Dance

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Friday, February 7, 2025 8 pm
Zellerbach Auditorium UC Berkeley

Excellent performance: Repetitive Rhythms

The Twyla Tharp Dance Company performed two works at Zellerbach Auditorium to a welcoming ‘new year’ audience of devoted Cal supporters. First on the program was “Diabelli” choreographed in 1998. The music, played live by pianist Vladimir Rumyantsev, was Beethoven’s “33 variations on a Waltz” by Diabelli. The music and the attentive audience both presented an enormous challenge.

Tharp’s company of ten dancers are talented, skilled and precise in their range and variety of dance technique and indeed wonderful to watch. Yet, Tharp’s choreography, challenging and varied as it is, presents a constant series of entrances and exits. Sometimes the stage is full; more often soloists and duets appear for short sections, then are reorganized into larger group.

This choreographic design is central to both works on the program. “Slacktide” (a 2025 West Coast Premiere), although lighter and more playful in character and movement, uses the same patterns. There are delightful duets and trios between the men dancers interspersed with acrobatic duets for men/women partners. Some solos (many consisting of humorous movement) provide a light quality to the live music by the Third Coast Percussion (and Constance Volk, flute.) The score is entitled “Agnuas da Amazonia” by Philip Glass, a delightful work. (Costuming was varied, although all dancers were in black. Shorts on dancers legs cut the line…not a good choice.)

Tharp has been a renowned choreographer in the ‘modern dance’ world and has received numerous honors and awards. Her dancers appear to be fundamentally ballet trained, although they adapt to the movement ‘quirks’ that Tharp demands. As my guest remarked, “Although the music in almost entirely different, both dance works begin to look…and feel alike in a short time.”

The dancers are: Angela Falk, Zachery Gonder, Oliver Greene-Cramer, Kyle Halford, Daisy Jacobson, Miriam Gittens, Nicole Ashley Morris, Marzia Memoli, Alexander Peters, Molly Rumble, Reed Tankersley. Applause and kudos to the dancers and the musicians, all extremely skilled and talented.

Tharp, although she is a “master” of her craft, might refresh the style and shape of her choreography so that audiences can follow the many variations and remember the movement.

Twyla Tharp Dance Diamond Jubilee at Northrop Work: SLACKTIDE Choreographer: Twyla Tharp   Photo: Studio Aura

 

Dance

SF Ballet Manon

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San Francisco Ballet
Weds. January 29, 2025 7:30 PM
War Memorial Opera House SF
Magnificent, memorable…but “too much”

The San Francisco Ballet, opened its 2025 season with British choreographer Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s “Manon.” First produced in 1974 at the Royal Opera House, Convent Garden, London, the work has been faithfully recreated by “stager” Robert Tewsley and Artistic Director Tamara Rogo. The costumes (apparently) have been borrowed from London and represent nostalgic remembrance for Rogo. That history is recorded in the 2025 “Manon” program.

The ballet is a remarkably danced narrative of an “opera comique” in five acts by Jules Massent to a French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille, and based on the 1731 novel ‘L’histoire de Manon” by Abbe Prévost.” Such a distinguished history demands careful staging and brilliant dancing. But ballet is not opera, drama nor literature. It is a ‘live’ art demanding close study, observation and some acquaintance with its unique vocabulary. Such skill is not always available to an average audience, although the SF Ballet audience is devoted and well-practiced.

This 2025 production reproduces MacMillan’s work in great detail. Each scene has many events; some go on as ‘background’ and some are brought forward for more immediate attention. Often there is too much to see, observe, and remember, but all presentations are remarkable.

“Manon,” for this evening’s production, was danced by the ‘incredible’ Nikisha Fogo, whose dance skills have been happily observed and appreciated in previous seasons. Another excellent dancer, Katherine Barkman, was cast as “Lescaut’s Mistress.” The program notes that this was her “premiere in role.” It will be a joy to see her in other ‘lead’ roles in the future. Featured in the a male roles were Aaron Robison as Des Grieux (Manon’s lover), Fernando Carratala Coloma (Manon’s brother (also a premiere role) and as Monsieur G.M., Daniel Delvision-Oliveira.

All the gentlemen compete for Manon’s attention and through the many episodes of fidelity and betrayal, Des Grieux remains with her in the bitter Louisiana exile!

This reviewer, her guest and the audience in general were delighted with the dancers’ skills, the amazing scenic presentations (by Nicholas Georgiadis), the lighting design (Jacopo Pantani) and all the elaborate production details throughout the evening. But finally, it was too much. There were often too many dancers on stage, too many scenic effects, even too much action (e.g. a card game down stage-rlght, important to the plot but not alas, brought into focus).

The Act III finale is an unique “pas de deux” for Fogo and Robison. They dance on a cleared stage, he lifting her in triple turns upstage (as if to heaven?} and finally lamenting her death as he leans over her with painful embraces. It is a remarkable duet.

“Manon” is a magnificent event in the SF Ballet’s 2025 season. To bring it to its well- deserved appreciation, this reviewer might suggest some refocusing of the major incidents. But alas, it might not then be McMillan’s “Manon”

Dance

SF Ballet Nutcracker 2024

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San Francisco Ballet
NUTCRACKER
Saturday, December 7, 2024/7 PM

An old favorite/a new delight!

I first saw Nutcracker at the old NY Metropolitan Opera House. Like so many children attending this annual ballet ‘celebration’, I hardly saw nor could remember the many acts and dances but the event lives with me still. We sat far away in the upper balcony. But, as it still does today, “Nutcracker” remains a marvel with its many episodes, solo and group performances and above all, the amazing stagecraft that makes it all possible. Such was the San Francisco Ballet’s December 7 performance for this 2024 holiday season. Above all was the ‘Grand Pas de Deux” performed by Nikisha Fogo and Max Cauthorn.

“Nutcracker” is an annual celebration of Christmas, complete with a family gathering, presents for children, dancing for all age groups and then a remarkable dream fantasy for the girl who has been given ‘the Nutcracker.” History tells us that the original “Nutcracker” was an adaptation of Alexandre Dumas 1844 short story and a retelling of E.T.A. Hoffman’s 1816 story “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King.” The German tradition reports that “decorative nutcracker figurines most commonly made to resemble toy soldiers and are symbols of good luck frightening away malevolent spirits.” All of these backgrounds are inherent in the ballet’s story.

But it’s the continuing performance that holds the magic.  “On Christmas Eve, 1944, San Francisco Ballet launched a national holiday tradition with the American premiere oI NUTCRACKER choreographed by William Christensen – the first complete version of the ballet ever staged in the United States.” The Helgi Tomasson production (modeled after the NYC Ballet’s Balanchine original), is Nutcracker as a holiday tradition. Outstanding in this current performance (which will run through December 29) is Val Caniparoli as Drosselmeyer (the magician storyteller) and

Loé Dechelette who dances Clara who receives the Nutcracker doll. Drosselmeyer (in magical dream sequences) takes Clara through the various episodes, including visions of snowflakes dancing, a battle between mice and the Nutcracker Prince, dance sequences from a variety of countries (Spanish, Arabian, Chinese, French and Russian). In addition, there are, waltzing flowers, Madame Du Cirque and her Baffoons (SF Ballet students) and finally, the Grand Pas de Deux. Max Cauthorn returns from Act 1 to partner the marvelous Nikisha Fogo.

Fogo has the ability to bring dramatic projection to her excellent technical skills. Her solos and her work as a partner in the “grand pas de deux” carry across the footlights. She is very much the dedicated and matched ‘’partner’ but her focus and technical achievements dominate (but do not diminish) Cauthorn’s excellent performance. All dancers in “Nutcracker” are to be praised…but Fogo’s achievement makes this reviewer look forward to her roles in the 2025 SF Ballet season. She deserves great admiration for her previous roles in the SF Ballet.

Applause and admiration to the technical staff of the SF Ballet who are able to move the dancers from scene to scene, décor to décor with great skill and no ‘glitches’. We also congratulate the SF Ballet orchestra under the direction of Martin West who give the audience the beautiful music of Tschaikovsky’s well known and still marvelous score.

Note: There is a Nutcracker Museum in Leavenworth, Washington “dedicated to nutcrackers and nutcracking devises. It was founded by Arlene Wagner and her husband George.” Wagner taught “multiple productions of Nutcracker and became enamored by them. The museum houses of 9,000 nutcrackers.

The December 2024 SF Ballet program correctly notes: “On Christmas Eve, 1944, San Francisco Ballet launched a national holiday tradition with the American premiere oI NUTCRACKER choreographed by William Christensen – the first complete version of the ballet ever staged in the United States.” My apologies for hasty research on the history of the US. Performance of NUTCRACKER Joanna Harris