Dance

SF Ballet – Colorforms

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San Francisco Ballet: “The Colors of Dance”
Opera House: San Francisco
Tuesday, March 14, 2023

The ongoing season of the San Francisco Ballet under the direction of Tamara Rojo continues to delight audiences with dearly reconstructed works and new ballets. Tomasson’s 7 for Eight opened the evening with the appearance of Yuan Yuan Tan and Aaron Robison in the first movement. The couple who are familiar to the SF Ballet audience appeared again in the sixth movement. The “Eight” movements are danced by seven dancers, each and all performing with delightful skill and energetic projection. Kudos to the soloist Lucas Ernie whose technique was extraordinary.

The premiere of the evening was “Colorforms” a new work by Myles Thatcher with music by Steve Reich. The dancers are released to some extent from the uniform colors of ‘classical’ ballet costumes, here dressed in a variety of contemporary outfits including shorts, slacks, skirts and a variety of shoes and sneakers. Of course there are toe shoes on the women, but a more varied style of movement sparked the casual play between the cast: Jasmine Jamison; Sasha de Sola, Aaron Robison, Misa Kuranaga, Cavan Conley, Esteban Hernandez, Isabella Devivo, Steven Morse, Maggie Weirich and Davide Occhipinti. There is a good deal of casual acting, flirtation and teasing before and during the interactions, solos and duets that are danced amidst the changing landscape. This reviewer, although admiring all the dancers, did not find the setting and stage set changes to the advantage of the dance. Notes indicate that the dance was “infused with joy-and a bit of irreverence,” even escapism. Yes, but enough to lose the sense of the whole. Although sets are exciting to see and visually inventive, the dance and dancers are often ‘lost’ in the demands they make. Sets, lights, overdone costumes can ‘upstage’ dance.

“Blake Works!” Choreography and scenic design by William Forsythe, which has its premiere at SFB in 2022 was a more pleasant and for me, a more theatrical work. Composer James Blake provided a variety of songs and dancers Sasha De Sola, Nikisha Fogo, Jasmine Jimison presented casual but intriguing acting in their dance/movement.

The dramatic action of soloists against group was particularly fine. Sasha De Sola had the delight of her toy ‘plane’ to give the work a ‘center’ action. The audience also enjoyed the game. A men’s section danced by Joseph Walsh, Isaac Hernández, Max Cauthorn, Lucas Erni, Esteban Hernández was particularly skilled and delightful and of course in other sections, the men partnered the women (as named above) in various song-duets. It was good to see Nikisha Fogo on stage again. She has not appeared in the last year as often as her talent offers.

“The Colors of Dance” was a delightful evening extending ballet ‘libretti” in ways that are contemporary and for the most part delightful. Although Thatcher and Forsythe expand the usual ‘classical’ dance vocabulary in the their works, still, in the midst of innovative movement the choreography reverts to ‘pas de deux’ lifts and falls, pirouettes and acrobatic extensions which are the fundamental ballet vocabulary. It would be interesting for ‘new works’, ‘new choreographers’ to find a consistent vocabulary for their inventions.’

7 FOR EIGHT
Conductor: Martin West
Piano: Mungunchimeg Buriad

First Movement
Yuan Yuan Tan, Aaron Robison

Second Movement
Norika Matsuyama, Cavan Conley

Third Movement
Ellen Rose Hummel, Carmela Mayo
Lucas Erni

Fourth Movement
Cavan Conley, Luca Ferrò
Norika Matsuyama, Carmela Mayo

Fifth Movement
Lucas Erni

Sixth Movement
Yuan Yuan Tan, Aaron Robison

Seventh Movement
Ensemble

 

COLORFORMS

Conductor: Martin West

JASMINE JIMISON
SASHA DE SOLA, AARON ROBISON
MISA KURANAGA
CAVAN CONLEY, ESTEBAN HERNÁNDEZ
ISABELLA DEVIVO, STEVEN MORSE
MAGGIE WEIRICH, DAVIDE OCCHIPINTI

 

BLAKE WORKS I

I Need a Forest Fire
Sasha De Sola, Nikisha Fogo, Jasmine Jimison
Kamryn Baldwin, Thamires Chuvas, Isabella DeVivo, Gabriela Gonzalez, Blake Johnston, Swane Messaoudi, Nicole Moyer, Lauren Parrott, Leili Rackow
Max Cauthorn, Diego Cruz, Lucas Erni, Luca Ferrò, Esteban Hernández, Lleyton Ho, Alexis Francisco Valdes, Joseph Walsh

Put That Away and Talk to Me
Isabella DeVivo, Jasmine Jimison, Esteban Hernández

The Colour in Anything
Nikisha Fogo, Isaac Hernández

I Hope My Life
Sasha De Sola, Nikisha Fogo, Joseph Walsh, Max Cauthorn
Ensemble

Waves Know Shores
Isabella DeVivo, Diego Cruz, Alexis Francisco Valdes
Thamires Chuvas, Gabriela Gonzalez, Lauren Parrott, Lucas Erni, Luca Ferrò

Two Men Down
Joseph Walsh, Isaac Hernández, Max Cauthorn, Lucas Erni, Esteban Hernández
Ensemble

Forever
Sasha De Sola, Max Cauthorn

Dance

SF Ballet – Next 90 Festival – Program A

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San Francisco Ballet 90th Anniversary Season
Program A
January 20, 2023

Strange and Wonderful

Opening night for SF Ballet’s season brought new works to the Opera House stage.
As promised, there were new choreographers and intriguing dimensions to Program One. The San Francisco Ballet is moving into new dimensions.

Robert Garland’s “Haffner Serenade” to music by Mozart (Serenade #7in D Major) was a ‘sweet’ work for “pas de deux” Julia Rose and Esteban Hernandez accompanied by eight dancers, four men and four women who provided the charming but simple interludes before and during as accompaniment to the the “pas de deux.” It is not a distinguished work but it served as the opener. All the dancers were capable, but they were not challenged by the choreographic patterns nor steps. The costumes, men in green and women in pink, did not provide visual delight.“Resurrection” is a challenging work, depicting a dominant woman Queen (described in print as austere and malicious) who kills her partner and “uses her powers of persuasion, beauty and magic…to find a suitor to love and assist in rulership of her tribe.” Jamar Roberts, choreographer, (formerly of the Alvin Ailey Company) is quoted as saying that a choreographer should think like a novelist.

The story of “Resurrection” is novel, dramatic and often painful as the Queen (danced by Doris André) more or less ‘creates’ her suitor (Isaac Hernandez) into the man she desires. Wanting Zhao and Aaron Robison are active candidates in the narrative accompanied by eight “members of the tribe” Although it is a fierce, dramatic work, full of aggressive movement and strong expansive gesture, this reviewer found it dramatically unconvincing. It is a challenge, as one friend remarked, to “create a story that is politically correct and also “Kafkaesque”.The set, a series of wonderful arches by choreographer and designer Jamar Roberts was most attractive and intriguing. “Resurrection” is set to Mahler’s “Totenfeier.”

One of the new dimensions of “Resurrection” is that NO women in the group wore point shoes. This is a challenge for the dancers as well as for an audience for whom ballet’s history of the last hundred years has required ‘pointe’ work. Without ‘pointe’ the dancers seem to have stronger torso and arm gestures; but that might also be part of this powerful new ballet’s choreographic strength.

“Madcap” the closing work on the program, choreographed by a woman, Danielle Rowe, was also a challenging new adventure. To a series of songs by composer Par Hagstom, Ms. Rowe (a former dancer with the Nederlands Dance Theatre) has taken the ‘anatomy’of the clown and dissecting it as inspiration for movement.” Starring as The Clown is the wonderful Tiit Helimets, whose dramatic ability enables the work to be sustained throughout the many episodes of humiliation and recovery. Other characters are The Oracle (Jennifer Stahl) the Juggled (Max Cauthorn, Alexis Valdes and Wei Wang), The Red Nose (Davide Occhipinti, Henry Sidford), The Mirror (Sasha De Sola), The Kid (Parker Garrison) and a chorus of “Mom Pa-Pa’s).

“Madcap” is a delightful yet painful portrayal of what is usually portrayed as a rollicking good time at a circus or carnival. Rowe has stripped the surface and brought forth the complexity and the grotesque beneath the joviality. Again, we the audience are brought to see and experience dimensions of ballet that have been rarely presented.

This challenging program will be repeated at the Opera House through February 11 to be followed by more and other innovative events throughout the “next@90 festival.”

Conductor Martin West and the SF Ballet orchestra continue their outstanding musical skill to accompany the ballets. New director, Tamara Rogo is to be congratulated on her plans for the “next@90 festival”.

See: sfballet.org/events for further information.

Dance, Performance

Water in the Kettle

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“Water in the Kettle”
February 3, 2023
Rhythmic Cultural Works, Alameda, CA

Evie Ladin, Artistic Director of “Water in the Kettle”, tells us in a program note that the production was 5 years in the making. The MoToR group started with a 3-part work and “Water in the Kettle” is now a full evening event. The ‘lockdown’ years have nevertheless produced a dynamic, exciting work for the group of seven (plus two) dancers and two musicians. They are an unbelievable ensemble.

Ms. Ladin explains that her training included Appalachian cultural arts, percussive dance, harmony singing, string band music and social dance…and contemporary performance. All of these are presented as the group moves from one event to another, each featuring a teapot…an object that acts to unify the scenes and the messages. These, the messages, the statements, the presentations, are essentially about women – their actions, their pleasures, their cares and their abilities.

In one section, a woman stands on stage and the others decorate her with long bands of white cloth (perhaps representing a wedding veil?). The audience is handed the ends of the bands… they too are part of the ceremony. We hear the leader’s spoken words., e.g. “My mother said you could marry a rich man…or a poor one…but it’s good to have money” Such aphorisms present sentences and advice given to women year after year, assuming that “mother knows best.” Today’s women (mostly) protest and defy such statements, although they still echo in women’s essential knowledge. Ladin points to the fact that thematically “Water in the Kettle” gives attention to women who are “capable, skilled, experienced and suddenly overlooked or denied opportunity.” These women in this ensemble, “ain’t!” (Or if they are, they are speaking out about it!)

All the various numbers demonstrate the superb skill of the dancers as a dynamic ensemble, singing, clapping and moving in unison or in varying group patterns. Accompanied by musicians Amber Hines and Lisa German, their voices and percussive use of hands clapping and on the body is truly amazing. It is great ensemble work!

…and there is ‘tongue in cheek humor’ and real pleasure. Humor resounds throughout!

The dancers are: Keira Armstrong, Heather Arnett, Tammy Chang, Kirsten DeAmicis, Valerie Gutwirth, Evie Ladin, Sydney Lozier…with Linda Carr, JJ Hansen, and Cynthia Mah. Congratulations to all!