Only a hand-scrawled sign with the word 'Saliva' on an orange-and-white-striped construction barrier on Clementina Street hinted that there might be any kind of event going on Sunday night under the freeway.
But despite the chill, scores of people congregated under the graceful curving Fremont Street off-ramps, where performer and choreographer Keith Hennessy reprised his groundbreaking 1988 solo 'Saliva,' an inchoate mass of impulses, ideas, rage, humor and participatory episodes designed to elicit a response in the viscera.
San Francisco has a proud history of guerrilla art, and in the grand tradition, the police came by earlier in the day with a warning - lending a legitimizing whiff of the illegal to the proceedings. But with the air of a champion of public art in public places, Hennessy was characteristically unbowed.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Friday, December 11, 2009
Reworked 'Carol' a bit less inspired
A faint scent of spiced cider lurked in the air at the opening night of the American Conservatory Theater's "A Christmas Carol," the company's peppy seasonal favorite, calculated to dispense cheer and dispel the chilly midwinter gloom.
There would no doubt be a lump of coal in the stocking of anyone who'd grouse about a production that wears its merriment so prominently, and director Domenique Lozano keeps Charles Dickens' evergreen tale of Christmas redemption - adapted by Carey Perloff and Paul Walsh, with music by Karl Lundeberg and musical direction by Laura Burton - zipping along, without dwelling too much on any particular episode.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
'SenseScape': Chinese dance tradition updated
'SenseScape': Chinese dance tradition updated:
Traditional, classical Chinese dance gets a fresh flourish of energy in Lily Cai's newest creation, 'SenseScape.'
The Shanghai-born Cai is known for her blend of modern dance and Chinese influences, but whatever dance idiom she chooses, Cai's trademark is to give each work a unique texture. Cai - who founded her troupe in 1988 - credits the initial impetus of 'SenseScape' to composer Gang Situ, her longtime collaborative partner, who has created a partly original, partly sampled score for the work.
"It's about the human senses and the chi," Cai says, referencing the concept of energy and flow of life forces. "My technique itself is about the chi. In the past when I've choreographed, always I see an image first, but this time, I worked from the inside. I keep telling my dancers that the movement is just the result, like when you laugh or cry, you sense the sadness or happiness, then you start the action."
Main portion of the post
Rest of post here.
Traditional, classical Chinese dance gets a fresh flourish of energy in Lily Cai's newest creation, 'SenseScape.'
The Shanghai-born Cai is known for her blend of modern dance and Chinese influences, but whatever dance idiom she chooses, Cai's trademark is to give each work a unique texture. Cai - who founded her troupe in 1988 - credits the initial impetus of 'SenseScape' to composer Gang Situ, her longtime collaborative partner, who has created a partly original, partly sampled score for the work.
"It's about the human senses and the chi," Cai says, referencing the concept of energy and flow of life forces. "My technique itself is about the chi. In the past when I've choreographed, always I see an image first, but this time, I worked from the inside. I keep telling my dancers that the movement is just the result, like when you laugh or cry, you sense the sadness or happiness, then you start the action."
Main portion of the post
Rest of post here.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Left Coast Leaning Festival dazzling, dizzying
Before the curtain went up on Thursday night's opening of the Left Coast Leaning Festival, curator Marc Bamuthi Joseph noted that not only was the three-day event designed to highlight the work of artists from Pacific states, but he hoped that it would define a left coast aesthetic.
Set in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts flexible Forum space, with no proscenium and the vast, floor-to-ceiling backdrop only a few yards from the audience, the first challenge for the festival, co-presented by YBCA and Youth Speaks, was the limitations of, and possibilities afforded by, the space. The effect of video projected onto the backdrop was similar to sitting too close to an IMAX screen - exciting, even thrilling, but also a little nausea inducing.
Set in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts flexible Forum space, with no proscenium and the vast, floor-to-ceiling backdrop only a few yards from the audience, the first challenge for the festival, co-presented by YBCA and Youth Speaks, was the limitations of, and possibilities afforded by, the space. The effect of video projected onto the backdrop was similar to sitting too close to an IMAX screen - exciting, even thrilling, but also a little nausea inducing.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Filmmaker trains camera on Paris Opera Ballet
Filmmaker trains camera on Paris Opera Ballet:
Real life is the script for Frederick Wiseman, the documentary filmmaker, who turns his lens onto one of France's grandest institutions, the Paris Opera Ballet, in his latest film 'La Danse,' which opens Friday. Taking the viewer into the nooks and crannies of the Opera's venerable Palais Garnier and Opera Bastille, Wiseman observes the company in a 'fly on the wall' fashion - dancers in rehearsal, at rest, meeting with administrators, costumers dying swaths of fabric and meticulously beading elaborate costumes - uncovering stories large and small in the process.
Real life is the script for Frederick Wiseman, the documentary filmmaker, who turns his lens onto one of France's grandest institutions, the Paris Opera Ballet, in his latest film 'La Danse,' which opens Friday. Taking the viewer into the nooks and crannies of the Opera's venerable Palais Garnier and Opera Bastille, Wiseman observes the company in a 'fly on the wall' fashion - dancers in rehearsal, at rest, meeting with administrators, costumers dying swaths of fabric and meticulously beading elaborate costumes - uncovering stories large and small in the process.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Shrinking 'Nutcracker' to child size
Shrinking 'Nutcracker' to child size:
Like most people in the ballet world, the soft-spoken Mark Foehringer has had long experience with 'Nutcracker.' But with his latest production - which the Mark Foehringer Dance Project|SF will perform twice a day at the Zeum from next Sunday to Dec. 20 - he's hoping to capture the interest of young audiences with a child-scaled ballet that he describes as more like 'danced storytelling.'
Like most people in the ballet world, the soft-spoken Mark Foehringer has had long experience with 'Nutcracker.' But with his latest production - which the Mark Foehringer Dance Project|SF will perform twice a day at the Zeum from next Sunday to Dec. 20 - he's hoping to capture the interest of young audiences with a child-scaled ballet that he describes as more like 'danced storytelling.'
Q: Did the Zeum come to you with the idea of a "Nutcracker"?
A: Actually it worked the other way. We were putting together a long-term plan for the company, and one of the pieces of that plan was that we would do a show to help develop young audiences. Usually our shows are contemporary or abstract - more grown-up things, but we wanted to open up our work to kids.
One of the things I liked was that the theater at the Zeum was not in constant use. I think it was originally built as a teaching theater, and there have been workshops and some productions in it, but they hadn't had a lot that brought the theatergoing experience to that age range of 2 to 4 years old.
'The King's Only Daughter'
'The King's Only Daughter':
A thrilling energy blended with traditional storytelling is the heart of every performance by Oakland's Diamano Coura West African Dance Company. Colorful, ebullient and rich with infectious rhythms, Diamano Coura's latest show promises to be no exception as the company presents the U.S. debut of Nimely Napla's 'The King's Only Daughter.
In many West African communities, dance, music and theater blend not just with each other but also with daily life - an idea reflected in "The King's Only Daughter," which, Napla says, "is a dance drama, with music, song, everything together."
A thrilling energy blended with traditional storytelling is the heart of every performance by Oakland's Diamano Coura West African Dance Company. Colorful, ebullient and rich with infectious rhythms, Diamano Coura's latest show promises to be no exception as the company presents the U.S. debut of Nimely Napla's 'The King's Only Daughter.
In many West African communities, dance, music and theater blend not just with each other but also with daily life - an idea reflected in "The King's Only Daughter," which, Napla says, "is a dance drama, with music, song, everything together."
Diablo Ballet opens on solid ground
Diablo Ballet opens on solid ground:
With plucky reliability, Diablo Ballet opened its 16th season at the Lesher Center for the Arts over the weekend, performing three very different works that showcased the nine-member company's dependable energy and unflagging enthusiasm.
Central to the success of the program was George Balanchine's "Apollo," a great classic of 20th century ballet, which elevated matters to a level worthy of this sturdy company. As the Greek god of the title, Jekyns Pelaez is refreshingly naturalistic and playful, rather than stylized. More formal - if a trifle stern at times - was Tina Kay Bohnstedt's Terpsichore, whose softness and delicacy in a duet with Pelaez was one of the evening's highlights. If there's a complaint, it's that the tempos of the recorded music by Igor Stravinsky seemed to drag, particularly in the duet for Mayo Sugano and Jenna McClintock as the muses Calliope and Polyhymnia respectively.
With plucky reliability, Diablo Ballet opened its 16th season at the Lesher Center for the Arts over the weekend, performing three very different works that showcased the nine-member company's dependable energy and unflagging enthusiasm.
Central to the success of the program was George Balanchine's "Apollo," a great classic of 20th century ballet, which elevated matters to a level worthy of this sturdy company. As the Greek god of the title, Jekyns Pelaez is refreshingly naturalistic and playful, rather than stylized. More formal - if a trifle stern at times - was Tina Kay Bohnstedt's Terpsichore, whose softness and delicacy in a duet with Pelaez was one of the evening's highlights. If there's a complaint, it's that the tempos of the recorded music by Igor Stravinsky seemed to drag, particularly in the duet for Mayo Sugano and Jenna McClintock as the muses Calliope and Polyhymnia respectively.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Hip-hop dancers heat up the night
Hip-hop dancers heat up the night: It might have been a cold damp November night, but things were hot inside the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre as the 11th Annual S.F. Hip Hop DanceFest got under way Friday with the first of two weekend programs.
As the audience walked in, the mood was already enthusiastic as hip-hoppers from around the world messed around onstage and competed genially with each other. Of course, messing around in this case meant showing off acrobatic twisting turns in the air and sweeping balances on one hand.
Rest of post here.
As the audience walked in, the mood was already enthusiastic as hip-hoppers from around the world messed around onstage and competed genially with each other. Of course, messing around in this case meant showing off acrobatic twisting turns in the air and sweeping balances on one hand.
Founded in 1999 by Micaya, the three-day festival now attracts some of the best hip-hop crews in the world, but what's been the most impressive is to track the perceptible rise in level of groups who've long been part of it, such as Loose Change and the irrepressible New Style Motherlode.
In fact, the evening got off to a screaming hot start with New Style Motherlode's "Invasion Involved," a futuristic alien incursion - a sort of "Terminator - Rise of the Machines" tinged with bling. The Oakland company encompasses youth-oriented dance teams as well as an adult troupe, and for this effort multiple groups took the stage pulsating with an almost freakish energy. With densely interlocking choreography by, among others, co-directors Corey Action and Teela Shine-Ross, the ensemble's bag of tricks included tightly wound group work, a little bit of skateboarding and a stellar turn by martial artists James Solis and Richard Ines, who swiped through the air and tossed off corkscrewing double flips and 540-degree turns as if they were nothing.
Rest of post here.
Gary Masters gives ballet a modern spin
Gary Masters gives ballet a modern spin: "Veteran choreographer Gary Masters is perhaps best known for his modern dance work, but ballet is the idiom of choice for his latest, 'Fete for Three,' his third work for Diablo Ballet, which kicks off its 16th season at Walnut Creek's Lesher Center for the Arts this weekend.
Masters - who is on the faculty at San Jose State University and also directs his own company, sjDANCEco - has deep connections to modern dance giant Jose Limon, who inspired him to found the Limon West Dance Project of San Jose, the West Coast ensemble of the Limon Company."
Masters - who is on the faculty at San Jose State University and also directs his own company, sjDANCEco - has deep connections to modern dance giant Jose Limon, who inspired him to found the Limon West Dance Project of San Jose, the West Coast ensemble of the Limon Company."
Tree Frog Treks at Paxton Gate: Get curious
Tree Frog Treks at Paxton Gate: Get curious: "Piquing natural curiosity is right there in the name of Paxton Gate's Curiosities for Kids, a magic toy shop tucked away on San Francisco's Valencia Street, between 18th and 19th streets. Amid twisted branches and vines and whimsical mounted stuffed animal heads, science kits, games, knitted octopuses, giant eyeballs and other provoking tchotchkes share the shelves with natural specimens."
Monday, November 16, 2009
An interview with DV8 Physical Theatre's Lloyd Newson
Lloyd Newson talks about "To Be Straight with You" on KALW Radio
I haven't done radio for a while, but I got the chance to interview Lloyd Newson last week on KALW's New America Now program.
I haven't done radio for a while, but I got the chance to interview Lloyd Newson last week on KALW's New America Now program.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
DV8's Newson discusses S.F. production
DV8's Newson discusses S.F. production: "Founded in 1986 by Australian-born Lloyd Newson - who studied psychology in Melbourne before joining New Zealand Ballet - DV8 Physical Theatre's unnerving and often raw work blends movement with text - sometimes provocative and unafraid to dive headlong into touchy topics like racism and religious intolerance."
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Dance review: Strong beats from 'L7,' Fauxnique
Dance review: Strong beats from 'L7,' Fauxnique: "What makes rhythmic repetition so compelling in some instances and yet monotonous in others? This past weekend it was possible to spend each day visiting vastly different dance performances - at the Cowell Theater, at CounterPulse, at ODC - delivering a veritable blur of styles: modern, hip-hop, kathak, folklorico, flamenco, voguing. What sticks in the brain, though, are those moments when mere beats somehow crescendoed into a tidal wave, when rhythm not only reflected an individual pulse but also took on the force of a gestalt grouping."
Sunday, November 8, 2009
'The Walworth Farce'
'The Walworth Farce':
Everyone seems to agree that the main thing to know about Enda Walsh's critically acclaimed 'The Walworth Farce,' which the Druid Ireland theater company brings to the Cal Performances stage next week, is that it's OK to be lost and confused, right up through the intermission, maybe even into the second act.
"It's pure genius - it's everything you could want from a piece of theater," says director Mikel Murfi, with the sort of rapid-fire delivery that one imagines is embedded in the play itself. "It's hilarious at times, confusing at times, it's energetic, it's about what we are as people. It's explosive, tragic, incredible stuff. As a book, it was un-put-downable, although I have to say, the first time I read it, I was very, very confused as to what was going on."
Everyone seems to agree that the main thing to know about Enda Walsh's critically acclaimed 'The Walworth Farce,' which the Druid Ireland theater company brings to the Cal Performances stage next week, is that it's OK to be lost and confused, right up through the intermission, maybe even into the second act.
"It's pure genius - it's everything you could want from a piece of theater," says director Mikel Murfi, with the sort of rapid-fire delivery that one imagines is embedded in the play itself. "It's hilarious at times, confusing at times, it's energetic, it's about what we are as people. It's explosive, tragic, incredible stuff. As a book, it was un-put-downable, although I have to say, the first time I read it, I was very, very confused as to what was going on."
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Saturday stargazing at Lawrence Hall of Science
Saturday stargazing at Lawrence Hall of Science: "It's been 400 years since Galileo first pointed his telescope to the sky to look at the stars, and what better way to celebrate this International Year of Astronomy than by having a look at Jupiter, the planet that so mesmerized the great Italian astronomer.
The hills above UC Berkeley offer a fine vantage point for stargazing, and every first and third Saturday of the month, the Lawrence Hall of Science turns down the lights on the main plaza and sets up telescopes so astronomers amateur or professional can enjoy the heavenly show - a terrific opportunity to introduce kids to navigating the night sky and basic constellations."
The hills above UC Berkeley offer a fine vantage point for stargazing, and every first and third Saturday of the month, the Lawrence Hall of Science turns down the lights on the main plaza and sets up telescopes so astronomers amateur or professional can enjoy the heavenly show - a terrific opportunity to introduce kids to navigating the night sky and basic constellations."
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Isadora Duncan Awards
Isadora Duncan Awards: "Dohee Lee and Jo Kreiter will be honored for outstanding achievement by the 24th annual Isadora Duncan Awards, which recognize contributions to Bay Area dance between Sept. 1, 2008, and Aug. 31, 2009.
Lee will be honored for 'Flux,' an interdisciplinary piece commissioned by the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and Kreiter for 'The Ballad of Polly Ann,' a tribute to the women who built the Bay Area's bridges.
The Izzies also will pay homage to dancer Marc Platt, known as Marc Platoff during his years with the Ballets Russes, for sustained achievement. The Ashkenaz Music and Dance Center in Berkeley and pianist Roy Bogas, whose sensitive playing has enlivened many a San Francisco Ballet performance, will be recognized for their contributions to the Bay Area dance scene."
Lee will be honored for 'Flux,' an interdisciplinary piece commissioned by the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and Kreiter for 'The Ballad of Polly Ann,' a tribute to the women who built the Bay Area's bridges.
The Izzies also will pay homage to dancer Marc Platt, known as Marc Platoff during his years with the Ballets Russes, for sustained achievement. The Ashkenaz Music and Dance Center in Berkeley and pianist Roy Bogas, whose sensitive playing has enlivened many a San Francisco Ballet performance, will be recognized for their contributions to the Bay Area dance scene."
Monday, November 2, 2009
Trey McIntyre Project's whimsical show pleases
Trey McIntyre Project's whimsical show pleases: "For a moment, as a pair of red balloons made a buoyant ascent into the air, it almost felt like the dancers of the Trey McIntyre Project - which made its first West Coast appearance as a full-fledged company at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco's Kanbar Hall on Friday night - would float up next to them.
In many ways, McIntyre's 'Shape' - a helium-light, delightful interlude on a mixed program - epitomizes the kind of whimsical yet canny craft that has made McIntyre such a sought-after young choreographer."
In many ways, McIntyre's 'Shape' - a helium-light, delightful interlude on a mixed program - epitomizes the kind of whimsical yet canny craft that has made McIntyre such a sought-after young choreographer."
Friday, October 30, 2009
Experimental Exploratorium activates awe at 40
Experimental Exploratorium activates awe at 40: "A museum of ideas and playthings, of serious thinking and sheer aesthetics, of raucous shrieks of delight and quiet moments of discovery, the Exploratorium has striven to be more than just a typical science museum, to represent a culture of thinking differently - a place where art and science are not separate categories, but two sides of the same idea: comprehending the world around us.
Nowadays, it's nearly impossible to find a museum or educational institution that isn't employing the buzzwords 'interactivity' or 'hands-on.' But before Frank Oppenheimer opened the doors at the Exploratorium in the fall of 1969, museums were places with 'Do Not Touch' signs posted everywhere. Oppenheimer (the younger brother of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer) believed in learning by doing, in staying endlessly curious and in delighting in what the world had to offer, and much of the character of the Exploratorium is the thoroughly unpretentious character of the founder himself."
Nowadays, it's nearly impossible to find a museum or educational institution that isn't employing the buzzwords 'interactivity' or 'hands-on.' But before Frank Oppenheimer opened the doors at the Exploratorium in the fall of 1969, museums were places with 'Do Not Touch' signs posted everywhere. Oppenheimer (the younger brother of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer) believed in learning by doing, in staying endlessly curious and in delighting in what the world had to offer, and much of the character of the Exploratorium is the thoroughly unpretentious character of the founder himself."
Performing Diaspora Festival - beyond tradition
Performing Diaspora Festival - beyond tradition: "It was the Sufi poet Rumi who asked, 'When will you begin that long journey into yourself?' The 13 artists of CounterPulse's Performing Diaspora Festival, which begins next weekend have been on that journey for a year, and now dance audiences will have a chance to see snapshots of their trip. This ambitious new festival - which brings together artists from the Bay Area, Fresno and the Los Angeles/Pasadena area - has been as much about the process of creating the works as about the produced pieces that will be on the stage over the next three weekends."
Thursday, October 29, 2009
'HallowScreen': Classic spooky Disney cartoons
'HallowScreen': Classic spooky Disney cartoons: "We're looking for the new Walt Disney Family Museum in the Presidio, and after driving around the Main Post, we spot a pleasant-looking guy waving at us from the porch of a red brick building, indistinguishable from the other red brick buildings next to it, save for the discreet white sign."
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Alonzo King's 'Refraction' dazzling jazz ballet
There's a whiff of pensive yearning, even nostalgia, to 'Refraction,' which Alonzo King's Lines Ballet premiered on Friday night at the Yerba Buena Center's Novellus Theater. Casual intensity weaves in and out constantly - a couple may enter hand in hand, but their relationship is as likely to drift away as coalesce into confrontation. Strolling gives way to fitful drives across the stage, paralleling the score by jazz pianist Jason Moran - who accompanied the nine dancers live with bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits.
Read more at the SF Chronicle website.
Read more at the SF Chronicle website.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Dance Review: Trolley Dances a San Francisco Treat
Bright blue skies favored the sixth annual Trolley Dances, the itinerant series of performances in various sites along the J-Church line from Dolores to Balboa parks on Saturday and Sunday.
Most people on the first tour - there were half a dozen excursions each day - seemed to know all about the event, but a few were drawn up the hill to the statue of Miguel Hidalgo by the music of Mexican folklorico dancers Rosamaria Garcia and Jorge Rodolfo De Hoyos Jr.
Read more at the SF Chronicle website.
Most people on the first tour - there were half a dozen excursions each day - seemed to know all about the event, but a few were drawn up the hill to the statue of Miguel Hidalgo by the music of Mexican folklorico dancers Rosamaria Garcia and Jorge Rodolfo De Hoyos Jr.
Read more at the SF Chronicle website.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Alonzo King Lines Ballet season to premiere
The conversation is quiet but characteristically intense as Alonzo King and his dancers try to work out the shape of the rehearsal periods for the day. It seems that the creative drive and the relentless demands of Lines Ballet's schedule have bumped up against the physical realities for the nine company members - no one wants to interrupt the momentum as the company races to create two world premiere works, but there are corporeal limitations to consider, too.
Read more at the SF Chronicle website.
Plus also check out the sidebar, What other artists say about Alonzo King
Read more at the SF Chronicle website.
Plus also check out the sidebar, What other artists say about Alonzo King
Thursday, October 15, 2009
96 Hours Family: Petaluma Pumpkin patches
In the pristine world of Facebook's Farmville, nothing is ever dusty, there's no smell of manure and the pumpkins only take eight hours to grow. With Halloween fast approaching, though, the time is ripe to detach from the computers and take the kids out to pick pumpkins for real.This weekend, you don't have to brave traffic jams headed to Half Moon Bay's Art & Pumpkin Festival to get good jack-o'-lantern material. Consider, instead, heading to some of the working farms of Petaluma, like Peterson's Farm or Andersen's Organic Vegetable Stand and Pumpkin Patch.
Read more at the SF Chronicle website.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Dance Review: Smuin Ballet's "Soon These Two Worlds"
A genuine sweetness pervades Amy Seiwert's carefree new ballet, "Soon These Two Worlds," which Smuin Ballet premiered Friday night at the Palace of Fine Arts.
Perhaps it sounds dismissive to call something "sweet" these days, but Seiwert's latest is a genuinely upbeat diversion that melds solidly structured energy with a fresh, sunny disposition.
Lit with a dusky, afternoon glow by David K.H. Elliott, the six couples have the vibe of companionable friends, perhaps celebrating after a long workday - individuals make their own interpretations of Seiwert's complex steps, but everyone is dancing to the same purpose.
Although there's a hint of African influence in Christine Darch's vibrantly striped tights and skirts - which elicit a pleasant dizziness as the dancers twirl, like watching the slots of a zoetrope go 'round - and an unmistakable African dance flavor to the rounded arm swoops and hip accents, the overall effect of the choreography is 100 percent Seiwert.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
96 Hours: The Blessing of the Animals
Four legs, two legs, Episcopalian, agnostic, furry, feathered or scaled - everyone is welcome at Grace Cathedral's blessing of the animals, an annual celebration of the guy for whom San Francisco is named, St. Francis of Assisi.Although this favorite traditional ceremony traces back to the fourth century, when St. Anthony of the Desert allowed animals into the church to be blessed - most churches now celebrate the event on Oct. 4, the feast day of St. Francis, well-known to Christians for his love of animals. After naming him the patron saint of ecology in 1979, Pope John Paul II wrote that he hoped St. Francis' example would, "help us to keep ever alive a sense of 'fraternity' with all those good and beautiful things which Almighty God has created. And may he remind us of our serious obligation to respect and watch over them with care, in light of that greater and higher fraternity that exists within the human family."
Read more at the SF Chronicle website.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Bill T. Jones finds inspiration in Lincoln
The historiography and legacy of the Abraham Lincoln phenomenon is at the heart of Bill T. Jones' latest work, "Fondly Do We Hope ... Fervently Do We Pray," which his company performs at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts beginning Thursday. More than two years in the making, the work is a commission, by Illinois' Ravinia Festival for the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth, but it's also a project that has grown close to Jones' heart.Q: You've talked about the struggle between the vision of Lincoln you had as a 5-year-old versus that of your older, more cynical self. How did that factor into "Fondly"?
A: Initially, I thought the approach was going to be prosecutorial, to challenge the theory of history. Let's challenge this great man, whom modern scholarship has revealed to be definitely just a man of his era and a politician to boot. I thought it was going to be about finding the person that I loved as a child, through what I now know about him as a man. And I found ultimately - after reading and working and thinking quite a bit - that he deserves my respect and, I would say in a more emotional way, he deserves my heart.
Read more on the SF Chronicle website.
Photo: Todd Heisler / NYT
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Dance Review: Margaret Jenkins Dance Company in "Other Suns"
At the heart of "Other Suns (A Trilogy)," the thoroughly engrossing work which the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company and China's Guangdong Modern Dance Company premiered at Yerba Buena Center's Novellus Theater on Thursday night, is the exploration of what it means to be "different" or the "same."
Far from being a mere cultural odyssey, or superficial pasting together of disparate items, Jenkins' work - set to a peripatetic original score by Paul Dresher, who led his musical ensemble in the pit - seeks something larger and more profound.
Part one - a section of the work that Jenkins showed to San Francisco audiences in 2007 - opens with designer Alexander V. Nichols' stunning visual space: Banks of lights across the upper and lower reaches of the stage frame dozens of bare lamps suspended like raindrops overhead, without the watery set piece seen in the 2007 showing.
Under the canopy of light, bodies thrust forward, push and pull against each other, evoking longing, daring, missed opportunities and chance encounters. Dancers off on their own suddenly and satisfyingly interlock in skillfully distributed groups. When Emily Hite launches herself off the feet of another dancer, her brief assisted flight is exhilarating.
Read more at the SF Chronicle site.
Far from being a mere cultural odyssey, or superficial pasting together of disparate items, Jenkins' work - set to a peripatetic original score by Paul Dresher, who led his musical ensemble in the pit - seeks something larger and more profound.
Part one - a section of the work that Jenkins showed to San Francisco audiences in 2007 - opens with designer Alexander V. Nichols' stunning visual space: Banks of lights across the upper and lower reaches of the stage frame dozens of bare lamps suspended like raindrops overhead, without the watery set piece seen in the 2007 showing.
Under the canopy of light, bodies thrust forward, push and pull against each other, evoking longing, daring, missed opportunities and chance encounters. Dancers off on their own suddenly and satisfyingly interlock in skillfully distributed groups. When Emily Hite launches herself off the feet of another dancer, her brief assisted flight is exhilarating.
Read more at the SF Chronicle site.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Margaret Jenkins, Guangdong troupe pair up
Veteran choreographer Margaret Jenkins and her dancers join forces with China's Guangdong Modern Dance Company for "Other Suns," an intersection of cultures and ideas, which premieres Thursday at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
For Jenkins, it has been a process of more than two years that has taken her company of eight dancers to Guangzhou, China, in 2008 and back home as they worked on the tripartite work, which encompasses a section created by each company and a collaborative finale. As she prepared for the Chinese dancers' arrival in San Francisco, a moment in the quiet studios on Eighth and Folsom streets found her in a characteristically reflective mood.
Read more at the SF Chronicle site.
For Jenkins, it has been a process of more than two years that has taken her company of eight dancers to Guangzhou, China, in 2008 and back home as they worked on the tripartite work, which encompasses a section created by each company and a collaborative finale. As she prepared for the Chinese dancers' arrival in San Francisco, a moment in the quiet studios on Eighth and Folsom streets found her in a characteristically reflective mood.
Read more at the SF Chronicle site.
Reality star Payne dances her way to 'Fame'
Bubbly and unpretentious, Kherington Payne comes across as exactly the same fresh-faced girl who charmed fans of the reality show "So You Think You Can Dance" with her exhilarating Viennese waltz, spitfire krumping and, of course, the impassioned Mia Michaels number with Stephen "Twitch" Boss known as the "bed routine."Growing up in Southern California, Payne took to competition, in the dance studio and on the sports field. A dancer since age 2, Payne got most of her early training at the Dance Precisions studio in Yorba Linda (Orange County), but she was also an avid soccer player in school.
"It's so weird to say that I loved both so much, because how you do both? But dance and soccer were just equally important to me," she says. "I would go to soccer practice and then run to dance in my soccer clothes and, sometimes, even dance in my soccer clothes. I loved both so much that I was willing to run from soccer games to dance competitions all weekend. I was just a girl without a social life."
Read more at the SF Chronicle site.
Mark Morris Dance Group's ethereal 'Visitation'
In a world of dizzying and doubt-inducing complexity, there's something refreshing about the kind of direct and lovely simplicity that marks "Visitation," which the Mark Morris Dance Group performed to open the Cal Performances season at Zellerbach Hall on Thursday night.
Seemingly suspended in a state of expectancy, "Visitation" (set to Beethoven's sonata No. 4 for cello (Wolfram Koessel) and piano (Colin Fowler) is suffused with a kind of intimate anticipation. Groups break into pairs, dancers shift partners, intermingling duets for Joe Bowie, Noah Vinson, Michelle Yard and Rita Donahue pulse between sharp and soft, but throughout there's an ecstatic impulse in repeated arched backs and faces upturned toward the heavens as if hunting for salvation. And at the heart of the piece is a pensive Maile Okamura - a kind of outlier, though not an outsider to the group of nine dancers. Okamura invests the Beethoven score with a delicate yet passionate touch and it's infectiously delightful to watch her take to the air, hair flying across her face.
Read more at the SF Chronicle site.
Seemingly suspended in a state of expectancy, "Visitation" (set to Beethoven's sonata No. 4 for cello (Wolfram Koessel) and piano (Colin Fowler) is suffused with a kind of intimate anticipation. Groups break into pairs, dancers shift partners, intermingling duets for Joe Bowie, Noah Vinson, Michelle Yard and Rita Donahue pulse between sharp and soft, but throughout there's an ecstatic impulse in repeated arched backs and faces upturned toward the heavens as if hunting for salvation. And at the heart of the piece is a pensive Maile Okamura - a kind of outlier, though not an outsider to the group of nine dancers. Okamura invests the Beethoven score with a delicate yet passionate touch and it's infectiously delightful to watch her take to the air, hair flying across her face.
Read more at the SF Chronicle site.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Day of the Dead workshops
Although the Day of the Dead is not until Nov. 1, the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts is already working on elaborate decorations and altars that mark the celebrations of the colorful Mexican holiday. Joining forces with the San Francisco Symphony, which continues an annual tradition of a family concert on the Day of the Dead, the Mission Cultural Center is playing host to a series of hands-on workshops over the next few weeks that give kids the chance to work on large-scale community art projects, which will be exhibited in the lobby of Davies Symphony Hall in the weeks leading up to the holiday.
One of the three workshops has kids and their parents making giant animal sculptures inspired by the creatures that appear in Camille Saint-Saëns' "The Carnival of the Animals," which will also be on the program for the Nov 1. concert at Davies Symphony Hall. Workshop instructor Colette Crutcher, a local artist whose own exuberant mosaic mural "Tonantsin Renace" graces a wall at 16th and Sanchez streets, already has a menagerie going strong in the Mission Cultural Center studios.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
S.F. Ballet preps for takeoff to China
"Here! Here!" shouts Lola de Avila, as the flock of swans runs a tight circle around Vanessa Zahorian and Ruben Martin Cintas in the studios of San Francisco Ballet. "Run to here!"
The swans head for the studio's double doors, and soloist Anthony Spaulding, who's playing von Rothbart, helpfully warns, "They're coming out this way. I wouldn't want you to get trampled!"
Dancer after dancer streams out into the hallway, with de Avila - the associate director of the Ballet School - hot on the heels of the last one.
"Better!" she says warmly. "I'm still screaming, but that was much better."
Breathing hard, the dancers head back into the studio, where the artistic team is already in action, dispensing corrections. Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson is giving Spaulding notes on how to make his brooding Rothbart more owlish, ballet master Betsy Erickson is working with the little cygnets, and Bruce Sansom - a newly appointed assistant to the artistic director - is coaching more loft into Zahorian's jumps.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Dance center celebrates 20 years in S.F.
Worlds collide at the corner of Seventh and Market streets. Across the United Nations Plaza is a weekly farmers' market. Up the street is the futuristic Federal Building. On the corner there's a check-cashing joint and a Chinese takeout place. Above it all, behind the ornate terra-cotta decorations on the 1909 Odd Fellows Building, is the Alonzo King Lines Dance Center, home to thousands of dancers and this year celebrating its 20th anniversary.
Founded in February 1989, the then San Francisco Dance Center - which moved into the upper floors of the Odd Fellows Grand Lodge in 2002 - quickly became one of the busiest locations for dancers and choreographers on the West Coast.
A walk down the slightly grim, fluorescent-lit corridor takes you past an extended frieze of dancers stretching as the echoes of piano accompaniment drift through the halls. But step into any studio and you're suddenly drenched in natural light that pours into abundantly airy spaces from the high, arched windows.
Read more at the SF Chronicle site.Thursday, September 3, 2009
Scottish Highland Gathering and Games
Men tossing tree trunks, hurling 16-pound hammers, sheepdogs a-leaping, Scottish dancers dancing, bagpipers piping, drummers drumming - no, it's not the 12 days of Christmas, it's the two days of the 144th Scottish Highland Gathering and Games, which takes place this Labor Day weekend at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton.
"There is literally going to be something for everyone," says Floyd Busby, spokesman for the Caledonian Club of San Francisco, which has organized this annual event since 1866.
"There is literally going to be something for everyone," says Floyd Busby, spokesman for the Caledonian Club of San Francisco, which has organized this annual event since 1866.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
96 Hours: Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble
The strains of Latin jazz will heat up the city streets when the Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble plays this Sunday in Union Square as part of the ongoing free Jewels in the Square performances. Far from a kiddie show, this group of about 15 young musicians, who range in age from 10 to 18 years old, display a serious professionalism.
Founded in 2001 by Bay Area bandleader and San Francisco State University faculty member John Calloway along with Arturo Riera and Sylvia Ramirez, the ensemble boasts a resume that any professional would envy, including opening for jazz greats such as the Cuban bassist Israel "Cachao" López, and jamming with the likes of noted pianist Chuchito Valdés.
"It's quite an opportunity for a student musician," Ramirez says. "We are really unique - we've been around since 2001 and have never charged the students to participate. We recruit from all over the community, especially public schools, where kids may have a lot of natural talent and some training, but they might never have had access to private instruction in music."
Read more at the SF Chronicle website.
Founded in 2001 by Bay Area bandleader and San Francisco State University faculty member John Calloway along with Arturo Riera and Sylvia Ramirez, the ensemble boasts a resume that any professional would envy, including opening for jazz greats such as the Cuban bassist Israel "Cachao" López, and jamming with the likes of noted pianist Chuchito Valdés.
"It's quite an opportunity for a student musician," Ramirez says. "We are really unique - we've been around since 2001 and have never charged the students to participate. We recruit from all over the community, especially public schools, where kids may have a lot of natural talent and some training, but they might never have had access to private instruction in music."
Read more at the SF Chronicle website.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
96 Hours Family: Take Flight for Kids
For a kid who can't walk, how about the opportunity to fly?
The Take Flight for Kids festival, which takes off Saturday at the Reid-Hillview Airport in San Jose, aims to open up new worlds for kids with special needs, who are physically or cognitively challenged or from at-risk groups, by giving them a chance to experience flying - not just by riding in a plane or helicopter but also by taking the controls of the plane.
Sponsored by the Valley Medical Center Foundation Project and the San Jose Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 62, the flights are the experience of a lifetime, says organizer Dean McCully, and for many of the 200 or so lucky kids - who go up with their families - it might be the first time they've ever been in a plane.
"We put the kids in the co-pilot seat and when the pilot says, 'OK, the plane is yours,' they take over," McCully explains, admitting that the pilot, of course, doesn't take his or her hands off the main controls. But for a few minutes, the kids are able to direct the plane and feel what it's like to command the craft.
Read more at the SF Chronicle website.
The Take Flight for Kids festival, which takes off Saturday at the Reid-Hillview Airport in San Jose, aims to open up new worlds for kids with special needs, who are physically or cognitively challenged or from at-risk groups, by giving them a chance to experience flying - not just by riding in a plane or helicopter but also by taking the controls of the plane.
Sponsored by the Valley Medical Center Foundation Project and the San Jose Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 62, the flights are the experience of a lifetime, says organizer Dean McCully, and for many of the 200 or so lucky kids - who go up with their families - it might be the first time they've ever been in a plane.
"We put the kids in the co-pilot seat and when the pilot says, 'OK, the plane is yours,' they take over," McCully explains, admitting that the pilot, of course, doesn't take his or her hands off the main controls. But for a few minutes, the kids are able to direct the plane and feel what it's like to command the craft.
Read more at the SF Chronicle website.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Riding the Wave
WestWave Dance FestivalCowell Theater, San Francisco
July 12, 2009
By the time we got to the Cowell Theater, full of anticipation for the 2009 WestWave Dance Festival, the line stretched far into the parking lot of the Fort Mason Center making the distance between us and the seats of the Cowell Theater feel like they were miles away. Patiently determined theatergoers, however, looked undaunted by the 20 minute wait (at five minutes to curtain) and box office mixups and by the time the show finally got underway half an hour late, the mood was unaccountably good-humored despite the obstacles.
(photo of Amy Seiwert by Andy Mogg)
In the long foggy San Francisco summers, WestWave Dance Festival's concentrated showing of local choreographers has long been an indispensable annual event for Bay Area dance aficionados. So it was happy news that despite tight financial times, producer Joan Lazarus was forging ahead with the festival this year, albeit in a shortened version -- one night only and with a limited number of companies participating.
Some of the work has been seen before, but worth a second--or third-- viewing. Katie Faulkner's seductive film "Loom" which traces the threads of a relationship played out between Faulkner and Private Freeman made an appropriately moody lead-in to "Until We Know for Sure," which the same two dancers performed live to snippets of music drawn from Maria Silva and Alfredo Duarte, among others. Floating in patches of light, Faulkner and Freeman melded one movement into the next with an ease and fluidity that still managed to surprise the eye with its impulsiveness. It doesn't hurt that the both of them have technical strength to burn--Faulkner's stability in a deep plie on half-pointe was mesmerizing, and Freeman's steady and attentive partnering was the linchpin on which the entire encounter turned.
Linchpins also leapt to mind while watching Amy Seiwert's latest "Response to Change" in which the choreography turns on split-second catches and fiendishly speedy interlocking of limbs. Dressed in purple tunics and t-shirts, Im'ij-re's four couples (Robin Cornwell, Vanessa Thiessen, Sharon Wehner, Kathi Martuza, Kevin Delany, Koichi Kubo, Matthew Linzer and John Speed Orr) work with seemed --given the score by Mason Bates entitled "The Life of Birds"--a fitful birdlike theme, although the demands of secure pointework seemed to make some of the women slightly cautious at first, though their confidence seemed to blossom as the piece developed, and one could only appreciate Thiessen's bullet-like pluck-- a pleasant counterpoint to Martuza's matter-of-factly, almost slyly, delivered supple extensions.
Also on the program was the premiere of Manuelito Biag's "Terra Incognita," a fractal of a dance that moved through solos, duets and trios for Biag, Kara Davis and Alex Ketley accompanied by song fragments composed and sung by Faulkner on guitar. On first view, "Terra Incognita" looks disjointed, dancers sussing out admittedly beautiful phrases of movement in a set dominated by bare lights and chairs. Davis and Ketley play out a tender pas de deux, Biag dances a solo with weighty moves that recall tai-chi, Davis flies about the space in an impassioned solo like a wild woman-- but still, this looks a bit like a dance being workshopped and still in progress. Nevertheless, as phrases of movement and music repeat and reassemble in ever-growing patterns a certain kind of organic order emerges. Even if the whole never seems to really cohere into a complete statement, it was worthwhile, both for the concept and the execution.
"Terra incognita" could well have described "*FLASH REAL* a Song Dance Cycle" Kim Epifano's mystifying and oddly frustrating journey through two years' worth of work which opened the evening. Accompanied live by composer and didgeridoo player Stephen Kent -- who also created the sound bed for this first of a multi-part work-- Epifano sang, swooshed and flew about the stage, drawing props and clothing Mary Poppins-like out of a capacious suitcase and seemingly menaced by a dangling crystal chandelier that loomed over the whole procedure like the sword of Damocles. I'm a bit of a skeptic at heart and any piece with a lot of running in circles tends to make my eyes narrow, but "*FLASH REAL*" was simply perplexing. Even though I had some awareness of Epifano's journeys to China, Tibet and Ethiopia, and followed her recent work, I couldn't fathom at all where she was taking us, although the collaboration with Kent looks like an avenue worth exploring.
Whether "Wake", the title of LEVYdance's offering on the WestWave program, refers to awakening, or to a funeral is unclear, although this lengthy duet for Brooke Gessay and Scott Marlowe felt as though it tended far more toward the sepulchral. As esoteric as I found "Wake," though, it's maybe a little unfair to try to re-evaluate this 2008 work based on this performance. Solemnly slow motion hip swivels and shoulder rolls were jarred out of focus by an obviously distracted and bored toddler who ran about the aisles and was finally removed shrieking from the auditorium. While I couldn't condone the impulse that led her parents to take her to what was obviously an adult event that was just too long for her, I also couldn't help but sympathize with her.
The evening closed on a similarly dark note with Patrick Makuakane's "From the last to the first," performed by the hula troupe Na Lei Hulu i Ka Wekiu. Beginning with a wailing lamentation and moving through somber ground through traditional dances to broadly curvacious choreography set to Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," this was hula seen in a serious mold. Unfortunately, although the power of the group and the sway of the mass of dancers onstage, in another context, might have been alluring and provocative, I was hoping not to leave the theater so depressed.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
96 Hours Family: Grind for the Green's Eco-music conference
With President Obama pushing to create millions of new "green-collar" jobs, being eco-conscious might not just be a good idea, it may become a lucrative one as well. But buying organic, starting your own garden and living the sustainable life can be expensive, and for many people, it might feel as though the green movement is a nice but unavailable crusade that has all but passed them by.
"While certain parts of the Bay Area are very eco-conscious, for people in some parts of the city, like Bayview-Hunters Point, they just don't have access to some of the resources, the technology or information that would allow them to live in an ecologically conscious, self-sustaining way," says Ambessa Cantave, who with wife Zakiya Harris founded Grind for the Green in 2007, an organization dedicated to bringing ideas on how young people can shape a green future for themselves and practical resources for sustainable living to underserved communities.
Read more in the SF Chronicle site.
"While certain parts of the Bay Area are very eco-conscious, for people in some parts of the city, like Bayview-Hunters Point, they just don't have access to some of the resources, the technology or information that would allow them to live in an ecologically conscious, self-sustaining way," says Ambessa Cantave, who with wife Zakiya Harris founded Grind for the Green in 2007, an organization dedicated to bringing ideas on how young people can shape a green future for themselves and practical resources for sustainable living to underserved communities.
Read more in the SF Chronicle site.
Queer Tango throws out the leader follower rules
"Where the man leads the lady must follow," wails one of the women in the cult classic "Strictly Ballroom."
And indeed it might appear that the social dance milieu - where the gender roles of a male leader and a female follower are seemingly built into the structure of the dance - is at odds with modern life in which gender roles are less confined. But in the world of Argentine tango, a growing community of dancers is looking to break the strictures of traditional gender roles.
Queer tango - which has become popular with festivals in Hamburg, Berlin, Stockholm and, of course, Buenos Aires - is not just for gay and lesbian dancers, but rather a more all-encompassing term for tango that embraces ambiguity in the leader-follower system. This not only allows dancers to take on nontraditional roles, but also gives them license to switch roles back and forth while dancing. San Francisco plays host to a regular milonga, or tango party, called QueerTango Cafe, on the second Sunday of each month, and now organizers Amy Little, Winter Held and Auriel are co-producing the first International QueerTango Festival to be held in the United States beginning Wednesday and running through the weekend.
Read more at the SF Chronicle site.
And indeed it might appear that the social dance milieu - where the gender roles of a male leader and a female follower are seemingly built into the structure of the dance - is at odds with modern life in which gender roles are less confined. But in the world of Argentine tango, a growing community of dancers is looking to break the strictures of traditional gender roles.
Queer tango - which has become popular with festivals in Hamburg, Berlin, Stockholm and, of course, Buenos Aires - is not just for gay and lesbian dancers, but rather a more all-encompassing term for tango that embraces ambiguity in the leader-follower system. This not only allows dancers to take on nontraditional roles, but also gives them license to switch roles back and forth while dancing. San Francisco plays host to a regular milonga, or tango party, called QueerTango Cafe, on the second Sunday of each month, and now organizers Amy Little, Winter Held and Auriel are co-producing the first International QueerTango Festival to be held in the United States beginning Wednesday and running through the weekend.
Read more at the SF Chronicle site.
96 Hours Family: Reflections at the Exploratorium
Kids tend to rush around the Exploratorium, but the young boy whizzing around me stops short with an impressed "Whoa!" He stares at the life-size upside-down image of himself that has appeared in front of a giant spherical mirror and experimentally waves his hand at himself, mesmerized by how real his doppelganger appears.
Once used by NASA for a flight simulator, the enormous mirror comes to the Exploratorium via the Chabot Space and Science Center, and it greets - and entrances - visitors to the museum's latest exhibition, "Reflections."
Read more at the SF Chronicle site.
Once used by NASA for a flight simulator, the enormous mirror comes to the Exploratorium via the Chabot Space and Science Center, and it greets - and entrances - visitors to the museum's latest exhibition, "Reflections."
Read more at the SF Chronicle site.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Review: Sylvia at American Ballet Theatre
Michele Wiles and Roberto Bolle in Sylvia. Photo: MIRA.
Sylvia at American Ballet Theatre, Metropolitan Opera House, July 1, 2009
Orion: Cory Stearns, Diana: Kristi Boone
Conductor: David LaMarche
Michele Wiles and Roberto Bolle in Sylvia. Photo: Gene Schiavone.
Conductor: David LaMarche
Gods and goddesses are at play in American Ballet Theatre's lavishly appointed production of Frederick Ashton's Sylvia, and to judge from the reception given the ballet by the audience at its Metropolitan Opera House run last week, this lovely work with its charming score by Leo Delibes is still much beloved, even after falling out of the active repertoire for decades until the Royal Ballet's 2004 revival.
Although I grew up on the company, I've only been able to see ABT intermittently over the past several years, and so I've lost track of the newest dancers, and can no longer reliably tell you on which corps members you should train an experienced eye. I can, however, report that glamour remains despite Nina Ananiashvili's recent farewell to the company, and there are some promising dancers whose performances stand out, even to the occasional viewer.
Among the handsome transplants to the company is the Italian star danseur Roberto Bolle, who danced the role of the shepherd Aminta who falls in love with the titular huntress, played on Wednesday evening by Michelle Wiles. Bolle has had the opportunity to dance the role at the Royal Ballet (he partners Darcey Bussell on the DVD that's available commercially) and has obviously benefited from the coaching at the institution where Ashton created Sylvia.
He makes a gallant partner for Wiles. Both are tall dancers, and though I had the sense that the Ashton choreography forced both of them to sacrifice the length of their lines in favor of getting all the steps in, Bolle presented Wiles to her best advantage in their pas de deux.
Michele Wiles and Roberto Bolle in Sylvia. Photo: Gene Schiavone.Wiles is a technically superior dancer, which must be-- and here I'm only guessing-- why she was assigned one of the most taxing of Ashton's roles. The choreographer jam-packs the evening with solos for the ballerina (Margot Fonteyn in the original production) and doesn't stint on the technique--a fusillade of hops on pointe, peripatetic jumps that coyly switch directions on a dime, light little gargouillades that seem to skim across the stage. And yet, although Wiles manages to execute, one can't help noticing that it's a struggle.
At this point, I hasten to add that the above criticism is not necessarily what I would describe as a technical deficiency. However, it does, in my mind, open an insight into why Ashton often looks fussy, and even dated. Pointe work--and more specifically the use of the feet in pointe shoes-- has, I think, changed vastly in the nearly 57 years since the ballet premiered.
Nowadays, particularly as the technology of the pointe shoe has changed, dancers are more apt to spring in the Russian fashion or even jump onto pointe. Shoes--like the Gaynor Mindens that are so popular for their ability to hold the dancer securely on pointe--are nonetheless difficult to hold in the right position when it comes to performing hops en pointe. And because the current fashion is to pop onto pointe and use the shank as a prop, rather than relying solely on the muscles of the feet to hold the position on pointe, the ability to rise slowly through the foot, or smoothly and articulately roll down to flat are out of style. The result is that Ashton's steps, which demand complex changes of weight and quick jumps, mixed with fluid eleves onto pointe, tend to look jerky, sometimes unsteady and even perplexingly capricious.
Wiles barrels through the role, and in a certain sense her attack and damn-the-torpedoes approach fits the idea of the fiercely independent huntress Sylvia. When she flies across the stage into Bolle's arms, it's as much a testament to Sylvia's spirit of derring-do as her besotted love for Aminta. Delicacy is not her strength however --her legs have a gorgeous length to them, but those bourrees looked a bit too sluggish--and ultimately Wiles' Sylvia is less beguiling than brassy.
In general, the men seemed to fare better at managing the Ashton style. Cory Stearns took to the role of the evil hunter Orion with a zest that launched powerful turns. As Eros, Daniil Simkin very nearly stole the show, easily navigating the quick beats and footwork that makes Ashton so interesting, and broadly interpreting his mime. One could easily comprehend his winning over the icy Kristi Boone as the austere goddess Diana.
As the ballet spins toward its happy finale with a flood of gods and demi-gods, Veronika Part lent a serenity to Terpsichore, partnered by Alexander Hammoudi as Apollo, and Maria Riccetto and Isaac Stappas hit just the right graceful lilt as Persephone and Pluto. Leann Underwood and Jared Matthews took on the roles of Ceres and Jaseion, but it was Misty Copeland and Craig Salstein who stole the scene in the last act with their saucy and adorable commitment to the otherwise mystifying characters of the two goats.
ABT's season at the Metropolitan Opera House continues through July 11, 2009 with Romeo & Juliet.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
96 Hours: Home Depot's Kids Workshops: safety, skill
On Saturday morning, you might notice a brigade of shorter-than-usual do-it-yourselfers heading through the aisles of Home Depot. Follow the sound of chattering voices and pounding hammers and you'll find dozens of youngsters sitting on upturned buckets and making projects at the Home Depot's Kids Workshops.
Read more at SFChronicle.com
Rest of post here.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Check it off: Dining outdoors
Another feature from the Check it off column in the SF Chronicle.
As the warmer weather kicks in, thoughts turn to dining in the great outdoors. Whether you're firing up the grill for Father's Day, planning a fancy al fresco buffet or just relaxing out in your garden on a weekend, here are a few things that can make your next outdoor gathering a bit more pleasant.
As the warmer weather kicks in, thoughts turn to dining in the great outdoors. Whether you're firing up the grill for Father's Day, planning a fancy al fresco buffet or just relaxing out in your garden on a weekend, here are a few things that can make your next outdoor gathering a bit more pleasant.
- Sun tea jar. An easy, cheerful addition to any outdoor party is a tall glass of sun tea. Make it in a large glass jar. Just fill the container with cold water, add three or four tea bags and set it in the sunlight for three to four hours. Pour the tea over ice and serve. Solar power never tasted so good.
- Frozen fruit. If you don't care for watered-down drinks, consider freezing some fruit the night before for use in your beverages the next day. Slices of lemon, grapes, chunks of pineapple, pieces of mango or raspberries can be a refreshing addition to iced tea, lemonade or a simple glass of fizzy water.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
96 Hours: San Ramon's Art and Wind Festival
Sled kites, diamond kites, delta kites - whatever your favorite style might be, for a high-flying time, consider dusting off your old kite and taking it out for a spin with the kids at the San Ramon Art and Wind Festival, which takes place on Sunday and Monday in San Ramon Central Park.
In addition to the regular arts, crafts and food booths, rock-climbing wall, face painting and inflatable bouncy houses that make any outdoor festival fun, kids can learn all about the ways of the wind in free kite-making workshops (10 a.m.-12:30 p.m. and 1:30-4 p.m.) in the community center, where they can also make wind socks, wind bonnets and wind wands.
Read more at the San Francisco Chronicle site.
In addition to the regular arts, crafts and food booths, rock-climbing wall, face painting and inflatable bouncy houses that make any outdoor festival fun, kids can learn all about the ways of the wind in free kite-making workshops (10 a.m.-12:30 p.m. and 1:30-4 p.m.) in the community center, where they can also make wind socks, wind bonnets and wind wands.
Read more at the San Francisco Chronicle site.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
USF dance teacher made great leaps
There's something about Kathileen Gallagher that immediately makes even a new acquaintance feel like an old friend.Lively and informal, Gallagher - the architect of the University of San Francisco's dance program - bustles with cheerful energy and doesn't look at all like someone who will be retiring this year after 41 years at the university. As the associate professor passes students in the hallways of the Koret Health and Recreation Center on her way to her office - which looks into the newly named Kathileen A. Gallagher Dance Studio - she has a solicitous greeting for everyone and seems to remember, in a maternal way, little things about each student.
Read more at the SF Chronicle website.
Friday, May 15, 2009
She's moved on, but ballet is in Bramer's blood
An edited version of this story first appeared in the SF Chronicle.
Hidden talent has always graced San Francisco Ballet’s corps de ballet, and in her nine years with the company, former dancer Dalene Bramer gave many a luminous and memorable performance in roles small and large. A Santa Rosa native who started dancing when she was three, Bramer arrived at the San Francisco Ballet School at the age of eight, and in 1996 was named an apprentice before joining the corps in 1997. Bramer attracted notice for her warmth and grace in roles as different as “The Pennsylvania Polka” in Paul Taylor’s “Company B” and the White Cat in “Sleeping Beauty.” She could dance a contemporary lead in Hans van Manen’s “Grosse Fuge” and give Balanchine a brilliant glow as a soloist in “Diamonds.” Now finishing her degree at USF’s School of Law, Bramer has turned her ballet-honed professionalism and prodigious intelligence to a new career, but she stays connected to the institution where she grew up by serving on the San Francisco Ballet Board’s School Committee.
As a student, what is it like in the days leading up to the showcase?
It was so exciting, especially as an advanced student, because you prepared all year long for that one performance. The teachers really coached you and helped you develop as an artist into the role that you were dancing. Irina Jacobson and Lola de Avila were my mentors at the school and Irina coached me in the lead in “La Sylphide” when I was 15. We would have rehearsals for a couple of hours a day at least and she would explain who the character was, the emotion behind what you were trying to portray, as well as technical aspects, like, “Put your heel forward more here. Turn out!” She broke it down so that each step was as perfect as it could be. The day-to-day class and exercises give you the foundation so that you have the base to support whatever is demanded of you. When you’re being coached, you’re finally able to bring yourself to the next level as an artist, rather than just doing the steps. It enables you to become an individual.
Did that experience being coached help you when you went into the company?
When I got into the company it was a little bit shocking. It had been a really nurturing environment in the ballet school and I had so many people who were really looking out for me. But once you get into the company, it’s a whole different set of people that are supervising you and teaching you the choreography and you really don’t know them very well. You’re no longer being coached or scrutinized as you were before—you have to do it for yourself. You have the tools and you know what you need, but you have to shift your mindset and be able to correct yourself with having someone constantly telling you what to do.
How did you find out that you’d gotten into San Francisco Ballet?
About three weeks before my last Student Showcase, I broke my fifth metatarsal. I was on crutches, which was somewhat devastating, because Helgi [Tomasson] had created a ballet for the school called “Simple Symphony,” and he had choreographed my part for me, which was an amazing experience for a student. My roommate was my understudy, so when I broke my foot, I started teaching her my part from the couch. I came to all the rehearsals on crutches, trying to encourage my friends and just be there. Well, right after the showcase I got a call from Helgi to meet with him, and he offered me a contract. He said he had had the opportunity to see before I broke my foot but then also in rehearsals for the role that I was supposed to perform and decided that it was worth giving me the chance. I think that it makes a difference, showing that you have a positive attitude--that you’re willing to be a team player and not be negative about the circumstances that you’re in.
Can you tell me about being in St. Mary’s LEAP program and how you came to pursue law?
It’s a tremendous opportunity for dancers, which meant that I was able to get an education and receive an undergraduate degree while I was still dancing. You know, dancers are going six days a week—you get Monday off and that’s it. So it’s hard to pursue an education because there’s just no time. At LEAP, they structured the program so we could have classes on Sunday evenings, even after performances. It was really fun to discuss philosophy and get your mind on something else, so that you’re not completely hyper-focused on dancing.
My last year dancing I knew I wanted to get a master’s degree, but I still wasn’t sure in what. St. Mary’s offered a para-legal program, which I thought that might be a good field for me, but I wanted to make sure. As it turned out, I really loved the research and writing class and I decided law was a good fit for me There’s a lot of artistry in law, in crafting an argument and delivering something that’s persuasive. It takes a lot of planning, just like choreography.
What are some of the things you hope to accomplish by being on the School Committee?
My role, I feel, is to help the school keep moving forward and to try to give it a young perspective. I think one of its most important functions is to develop young dancers into successful people. Of course, not every dancer who goes to the ballet school ends up becoming a professional--usually only one or two get into a company. But the skills that you learn from ballet—dedication, hard work, focus and determination, the knowing that if you put everything you have into it you’ll really see results—that inner strength can really carry you through your whole life wherever you go. In law school I’ve found a lot of those skills transfer. Having composure, grace and also the ability to perform under pressure is really useful when everyone is looking at you and expecting you to perform.
There was a matinee of “Diamonds” in which you danced one of the soloists--you hit a wonderful arabesque that stayed there, it seemed like, forever.
[Bramer laughs.] I remember that like it was yesterday! That was one of the magical moments when everything just comes together. I appreciate your remembering that. You know, it’s hard as a dancer not seeing the audience or their appreciation of you. You can feel them and their energy as you’re dancing, but you don’t necessarily know when people notice you. But the few moments when things just work perfectly—well, those always stay with you.
San Francisco Ballet School 2009 Student Showcase: “Allegro Brillante,” Stars and Stripes.” Wed-Fri, May 20-22, Novellus Theater at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard Street at Third St. All tickets $32. For more information, sfballet.org or (415) 865-2000.
Hidden talent has always graced San Francisco Ballet’s corps de ballet, and in her nine years with the company, former dancer Dalene Bramer gave many a luminous and memorable performance in roles small and large. A Santa Rosa native who started dancing when she was three, Bramer arrived at the San Francisco Ballet School at the age of eight, and in 1996 was named an apprentice before joining the corps in 1997. Bramer attracted notice for her warmth and grace in roles as different as “The Pennsylvania Polka” in Paul Taylor’s “Company B” and the White Cat in “Sleeping Beauty.” She could dance a contemporary lead in Hans van Manen’s “Grosse Fuge” and give Balanchine a brilliant glow as a soloist in “Diamonds.” Now finishing her degree at USF’s School of Law, Bramer has turned her ballet-honed professionalism and prodigious intelligence to a new career, but she stays connected to the institution where she grew up by serving on the San Francisco Ballet Board’s School Committee.
As a student, what is it like in the days leading up to the showcase?
It was so exciting, especially as an advanced student, because you prepared all year long for that one performance. The teachers really coached you and helped you develop as an artist into the role that you were dancing. Irina Jacobson and Lola de Avila were my mentors at the school and Irina coached me in the lead in “La Sylphide” when I was 15. We would have rehearsals for a couple of hours a day at least and she would explain who the character was, the emotion behind what you were trying to portray, as well as technical aspects, like, “Put your heel forward more here. Turn out!” She broke it down so that each step was as perfect as it could be. The day-to-day class and exercises give you the foundation so that you have the base to support whatever is demanded of you. When you’re being coached, you’re finally able to bring yourself to the next level as an artist, rather than just doing the steps. It enables you to become an individual.
Did that experience being coached help you when you went into the company?
When I got into the company it was a little bit shocking. It had been a really nurturing environment in the ballet school and I had so many people who were really looking out for me. But once you get into the company, it’s a whole different set of people that are supervising you and teaching you the choreography and you really don’t know them very well. You’re no longer being coached or scrutinized as you were before—you have to do it for yourself. You have the tools and you know what you need, but you have to shift your mindset and be able to correct yourself with having someone constantly telling you what to do.
How did you find out that you’d gotten into San Francisco Ballet?
About three weeks before my last Student Showcase, I broke my fifth metatarsal. I was on crutches, which was somewhat devastating, because Helgi [Tomasson] had created a ballet for the school called “Simple Symphony,” and he had choreographed my part for me, which was an amazing experience for a student. My roommate was my understudy, so when I broke my foot, I started teaching her my part from the couch. I came to all the rehearsals on crutches, trying to encourage my friends and just be there. Well, right after the showcase I got a call from Helgi to meet with him, and he offered me a contract. He said he had had the opportunity to see before I broke my foot but then also in rehearsals for the role that I was supposed to perform and decided that it was worth giving me the chance. I think that it makes a difference, showing that you have a positive attitude--that you’re willing to be a team player and not be negative about the circumstances that you’re in.
Can you tell me about being in St. Mary’s LEAP program and how you came to pursue law?
It’s a tremendous opportunity for dancers, which meant that I was able to get an education and receive an undergraduate degree while I was still dancing. You know, dancers are going six days a week—you get Monday off and that’s it. So it’s hard to pursue an education because there’s just no time. At LEAP, they structured the program so we could have classes on Sunday evenings, even after performances. It was really fun to discuss philosophy and get your mind on something else, so that you’re not completely hyper-focused on dancing.
My last year dancing I knew I wanted to get a master’s degree, but I still wasn’t sure in what. St. Mary’s offered a para-legal program, which I thought that might be a good field for me, but I wanted to make sure. As it turned out, I really loved the research and writing class and I decided law was a good fit for me There’s a lot of artistry in law, in crafting an argument and delivering something that’s persuasive. It takes a lot of planning, just like choreography.
What are some of the things you hope to accomplish by being on the School Committee?
My role, I feel, is to help the school keep moving forward and to try to give it a young perspective. I think one of its most important functions is to develop young dancers into successful people. Of course, not every dancer who goes to the ballet school ends up becoming a professional--usually only one or two get into a company. But the skills that you learn from ballet—dedication, hard work, focus and determination, the knowing that if you put everything you have into it you’ll really see results—that inner strength can really carry you through your whole life wherever you go. In law school I’ve found a lot of those skills transfer. Having composure, grace and also the ability to perform under pressure is really useful when everyone is looking at you and expecting you to perform.
There was a matinee of “Diamonds” in which you danced one of the soloists--you hit a wonderful arabesque that stayed there, it seemed like, forever.
[Bramer laughs.] I remember that like it was yesterday! That was one of the magical moments when everything just comes together. I appreciate your remembering that. You know, it’s hard as a dancer not seeing the audience or their appreciation of you. You can feel them and their energy as you’re dancing, but you don’t necessarily know when people notice you. But the few moments when things just work perfectly—well, those always stay with you.
San Francisco Ballet School 2009 Student Showcase: “Allegro Brillante,” Stars and Stripes.” Wed-Fri, May 20-22, Novellus Theater at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard Street at Third St. All tickets $32. For more information, sfballet.org or (415) 865-2000.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Goldrush adds a fresh twirl to square dancing
It's warm in the low-ceilinged, wood-paneled hall at the Cordelia Fire District, but the doors are open, letting an evening breeze in to cool the ring of young dancers who are walking their paces with good-humored grace.
"Turn and deal ... Ferris Wheel!" calls Scot Byars, an affable, energetic man dressed in white pants and a cheerful red shirt. He is working with the young square dancers of Goldrush, an exhibition group that Byars, 49, and his wife, Erin, 53, founded in 2007.
Read more at the SF Chronicle website.
"Turn and deal ... Ferris Wheel!" calls Scot Byars, an affable, energetic man dressed in white pants and a cheerful red shirt. He is working with the young square dancers of Goldrush, an exhibition group that Byars, 49, and his wife, Erin, 53, founded in 2007.
Read more at the SF Chronicle website.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Dance review: Smuin Ballet opens spring season
Something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue seems to be the theme of Smuin Ballet’s spring season, which opened at the Novellus Theater at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on Friday, and which continues through May 17.
In the new/borrowed category is Trey McIntyre’s flirtatious “The Naughty Boy!” which opens the program. Sporting a red furry mohawk of a cap, a pert Jessica Touchet plays a Cupid-like interloper romping through the amorous interludes of four couples. Danced to a recording of Mozart’s Violin Concerto in G, McIntyre’s contemporary speediness is likable, if not ground-breaking, and he maps out his steps with a precision that utilizes deft pointe work and pinpoint accuracy in the partnering to entertaining and sometimes dazzling effect, particularly from the spicy-sweet Jean Michelle Sayeg. But he also misses a few opportunities to steer “The Naughty Boy!” into more unusual territory. When Touchet inserts herself into Erin Yarbrough-Stewart and Aaron Thayer’s romantic pas de deux, for instance, the twining, interlocking trio looks like a promising conceit. But just as things get interesting, Cupid exits, leaving behind a very lovely and sentimental, but garden-variety, duet.
If the praise sounds a mite lukewarm, the problem is that Michael Smuin at his best and most inventive sets a high bar that’s hard to match. Immediately following McIntyre’s ballet on the program is Smuin’s miniature gem “Bouquet,” made for San Francisco Ballet in 1981 and a work that captures the best impulses of the imaginative, evocative ballet choreography of the 1970s. There are nods to the classics in quotations from “Sleeping Beauty’s” famous Rose Adagio and Balanchine’s “Apollo” in the opening quartet, in which a delicate, playful Yarbrough drifts into the sphere of three romantic suitors, but Smuin’s inclination here is toward an unabashed modern romanticism that admirably captures the disquieting ache of Dmitri Shostakovich’s music.
For those more familiar with Smuin’s late period razzle-dazzle, the company also premiered a suite of dances from his last story ballet, “St Louis Woman: A Blues Ballet,” which he choreographed in 2003 for Dance Theatre of Harlem to songs and musical interludes out of Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer’s 1946 musical of the same title.
The company has edited the original ballet down to suite of dances that sketch the rivalry between jockey Little Augie--played on opening night by the a jazzy, swaggering Ryan Camou--and the owner of Rocking Horse Club, Biglow Brown, danced by Matthew Linzer, both of whom are in love with the same woman, Robin Cornwell’s glamorous Della Green. The results are mixed. On the one hand, we lose bizarre, confusing plot elements like the Death character and the perplexing multiple finale numbers, but on the other, the drama of the races, the shooting and its aftermath are also gone and what remains still doesn’t make a lot of sense. Key numbers like “Come Rain or Come Shine” and “It’s a Woman’s Prerogative”--danced with winning charm by Terez Dean and Shannon Hurlburt-- are still there, as is Tony Walton’s colorful, Matisse-like backdrop. But despite the high-kicking spirit and Broadway jollity, the bits and pieces just doesn’t seem to hang together, although to be fair, neither did the complete original ballet.
An edited version of this review first appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle.
In the new/borrowed category is Trey McIntyre’s flirtatious “The Naughty Boy!” which opens the program. Sporting a red furry mohawk of a cap, a pert Jessica Touchet plays a Cupid-like interloper romping through the amorous interludes of four couples. Danced to a recording of Mozart’s Violin Concerto in G, McIntyre’s contemporary speediness is likable, if not ground-breaking, and he maps out his steps with a precision that utilizes deft pointe work and pinpoint accuracy in the partnering to entertaining and sometimes dazzling effect, particularly from the spicy-sweet Jean Michelle Sayeg. But he also misses a few opportunities to steer “The Naughty Boy!” into more unusual territory. When Touchet inserts herself into Erin Yarbrough-Stewart and Aaron Thayer’s romantic pas de deux, for instance, the twining, interlocking trio looks like a promising conceit. But just as things get interesting, Cupid exits, leaving behind a very lovely and sentimental, but garden-variety, duet.
If the praise sounds a mite lukewarm, the problem is that Michael Smuin at his best and most inventive sets a high bar that’s hard to match. Immediately following McIntyre’s ballet on the program is Smuin’s miniature gem “Bouquet,” made for San Francisco Ballet in 1981 and a work that captures the best impulses of the imaginative, evocative ballet choreography of the 1970s. There are nods to the classics in quotations from “Sleeping Beauty’s” famous Rose Adagio and Balanchine’s “Apollo” in the opening quartet, in which a delicate, playful Yarbrough drifts into the sphere of three romantic suitors, but Smuin’s inclination here is toward an unabashed modern romanticism that admirably captures the disquieting ache of Dmitri Shostakovich’s music.
For those more familiar with Smuin’s late period razzle-dazzle, the company also premiered a suite of dances from his last story ballet, “St Louis Woman: A Blues Ballet,” which he choreographed in 2003 for Dance Theatre of Harlem to songs and musical interludes out of Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer’s 1946 musical of the same title.
The company has edited the original ballet down to suite of dances that sketch the rivalry between jockey Little Augie--played on opening night by the a jazzy, swaggering Ryan Camou--and the owner of Rocking Horse Club, Biglow Brown, danced by Matthew Linzer, both of whom are in love with the same woman, Robin Cornwell’s glamorous Della Green. The results are mixed. On the one hand, we lose bizarre, confusing plot elements like the Death character and the perplexing multiple finale numbers, but on the other, the drama of the races, the shooting and its aftermath are also gone and what remains still doesn’t make a lot of sense. Key numbers like “Come Rain or Come Shine” and “It’s a Woman’s Prerogative”--danced with winning charm by Terez Dean and Shannon Hurlburt-- are still there, as is Tony Walton’s colorful, Matisse-like backdrop. But despite the high-kicking spirit and Broadway jollity, the bits and pieces just doesn’t seem to hang together, although to be fair, neither did the complete original ballet.
An edited version of this review first appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Tina LeBlanc retires from San Francisco Ballet
An edited version of this appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle.
(photo: Erik Tomasson)
Whenever a favorite dancer gives a retirement gala there’s a bittersweet mood in the audience and Saturday night was no exception as San Francisco Ballet bid farewell to Tina LeBlanc, who retired from the stage after dancing ten years with the Joffrey Ballet and 17 years as a principal with SFB.
Never a diva, but always a star, LeBlanc is the quintessential American ballerina--a dancer of can-do amiability with brains, pragmatism and a remarkably unpretentious freshness onstage and off. Even the ticket stubs for the gala occasion on Saturday night at the War Memorial Opera House said simply and without formality, “Tina’s Farewell.”
“You know, it’s funny, it actually feels like a family gathering,” remarked Rory Hohenstein, a former soloist with SFB who has guested with the company for the last few programs of their 2009 season. “But I saw dress rehearsal and already we were getting a little…” he wiped at his eyes.
Bill Repp, the doorman who enthusiastically greets patrons at the Grove Street entrance to the War Memorial Opera House—commiserated for a moment, “I’ve seen of course lots of dancers retire through the years, but this, this is one of the hardest,” he said shaking his head, “Tina is such a lady. She just commands so much respect from everyone.”
(photo: Erik Tomasson)
Whenever a favorite dancer gives a retirement gala there’s a bittersweet mood in the audience and Saturday night was no exception as San Francisco Ballet bid farewell to Tina LeBlanc, who retired from the stage after dancing ten years with the Joffrey Ballet and 17 years as a principal with SFB.Never a diva, but always a star, LeBlanc is the quintessential American ballerina--a dancer of can-do amiability with brains, pragmatism and a remarkably unpretentious freshness onstage and off. Even the ticket stubs for the gala occasion on Saturday night at the War Memorial Opera House said simply and without formality, “Tina’s Farewell.”
“You know, it’s funny, it actually feels like a family gathering,” remarked Rory Hohenstein, a former soloist with SFB who has guested with the company for the last few programs of their 2009 season. “But I saw dress rehearsal and already we were getting a little…” he wiped at his eyes.
Bill Repp, the doorman who enthusiastically greets patrons at the Grove Street entrance to the War Memorial Opera House—commiserated for a moment, “I’ve seen of course lots of dancers retire through the years, but this, this is one of the hardest,” he said shaking his head, “Tina is such a lady. She just commands so much respect from everyone.”
Devotees waiting for the doors to open so they could stake a spot in standing room reflected on LeBlanc’s qualities.
“When she first came to San Francisco Ballet, I had the impression she was a very technical dancer,” recalls Paul Dana, “But she proved to be so much deeper of a dancer than that.”
“I’ve seen many Auroras, and she was the first one since Margot Fonteyn to make me cry,” adds Tab Buckner. “Every gesture, the way she captured the mood of the music, in everything she did there was such logic in the way it unfolded. She is unique.”
Asked which of the many partnerships of Tina’s stands out in their memories, the crowd returns an unhesitating chorus. “Gonzalo!”
LeBlanc’s tremendous generosity onstage has never warmed a partnership so well as the one she shared with former SFB principal Gonzalo Garcia, who returned as a guest artist from New York City Ballet to present her in Balanchine’s “Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux” with just the kind of tenderness, nobility and abandon that she inspired in him in so many roles. Long-beloved as he rose through the ranks, Garcia’s partnership with LeBlanc was one of the magical events at San Francisco Ballet and from the roar that went up from the audience at their first steps onto the stage, clearly no one at the Opera House had forgotten.
Garcia’s beats were as lofty as we remembered--his exuberance still thrilling, but when LeBlanc looked at him meltingly, he turned his eyes to the audience for an instant as if to say, “Am I lucky or what?”
His gallantry was the perfect frame for LeBlanc, who even in this last performance took risks, playfully pushing the musicians and conductor Martin West with her crystalline phrasing, nailing a series of turns with a flourish and sailing—even floating—into Garcia’s arms in the coda.
Interspersed throughout the evening were video clips from LeBlanc’s long career, mixed in with tributes from her colleagues. Predictably much of the video, assembled by Austin Forbord, featured her astonishingly brilliant technical moments, breathtaking turns and virtuoso pointe work. But while most interviewees are inclined to mention her technique first, they almost always end by talking about how moving and engaging her dancing became, and there was no better place to see that sensitive and intelligent artistry than in Lar Lubovitch’s “My Funny Valentine,” which she performed on Saturday with Griff Braun, of Lubovitch’s company.
During intermission, LeBlanc’s early ballet teacher, Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet’s Marcia Dale Weary, recalled her young student. “She was so sweet, but so focused-- I knew right from the start that she would be a ballerina,” remembered Weary, “She still looks like the same little girl to me,” she added wistfully.
LeBlanc has always been best at playing real women, not airy-fairy types. While other dancers can look like unfamiliar, otherworldly creatures when you see them off stage, LeBlanc is always strikingly real—the same person you see onstage is the person you meet offstage. Even in dreamy roles like the Adagio from Helgi Tomasson’s 1995 “Sonata,” which LeBlanc danced with Ruben Martin in the second half of the program to the accompaniment of David Kadarauch on cello and Nataly’a Feygina on piano, she manages to compress a womanly earthiness into the expressiveness of an arching back or extended limbs.
“As a tall partner, I thought there would never be a possibility for me to work with this woman who made everything look easy,” said former SFB principal Benjamin Pierce, whose duet with LeBlanc in 2000 in Julia Adam’s “Night” remains etched in the memories of those who saw it. “I admired Tina so much but she was like a forbidden fruit, so ‘Night’ was like a gift. She had a reverence for the duality of two people working together and of her place in a big, beautiful company.”
Often hailed as the company’s premier technician, and admired by colleagues and audiences alike for her sunny vivacity, LeBlanc’s very presence in a ballet could immediately ground an entire cast. For her finale, LeBlanc shifted to Balanchine classicism with the pas de deux and polonaise from “Theme and Variations.” Partnered attentively by Davit Karapetyan, LeBlanc navigated the hair-raising choreography with extraordinary nerve and grace.
No matter whom the partner, when LeBlanc looks at him, there is a particular tilt of his head as he looks back at her and the warmth of her smile as she balanced steadily on one stretched pointe seemed to inspire Karapetyan, who walked around her gazing admiringly.
At the curtain call, as tears streamed down LeBlanc’s face, Helgi Tomasson led a parade of dancers--including Nicolas Blanc, Pascal Molat, Gennadi Nedvigin, fellow ballet moms Katita Waldo and Kristin Long, Joan Boada on crutches and LeBlanc’s former partners David Palmer and Parrish Maynard—who paid one more tribute to her. Garcia fell, only part-comically, to both knees before her, but perhaps no men affected her more than her two young sons Marinko and Sasha, whose pride in their mom’s evening was clear.
At the end, LeBlanc took one last bow, mouthing to the audience, “I’ll miss you” as the curtain fell.
“When she first came to San Francisco Ballet, I had the impression she was a very technical dancer,” recalls Paul Dana, “But she proved to be so much deeper of a dancer than that.”
“I’ve seen many Auroras, and she was the first one since Margot Fonteyn to make me cry,” adds Tab Buckner. “Every gesture, the way she captured the mood of the music, in everything she did there was such logic in the way it unfolded. She is unique.”
Asked which of the many partnerships of Tina’s stands out in their memories, the crowd returns an unhesitating chorus. “Gonzalo!”
LeBlanc’s tremendous generosity onstage has never warmed a partnership so well as the one she shared with former SFB principal Gonzalo Garcia, who returned as a guest artist from New York City Ballet to present her in Balanchine’s “Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux” with just the kind of tenderness, nobility and abandon that she inspired in him in so many roles. Long-beloved as he rose through the ranks, Garcia’s partnership with LeBlanc was one of the magical events at San Francisco Ballet and from the roar that went up from the audience at their first steps onto the stage, clearly no one at the Opera House had forgotten.
Garcia’s beats were as lofty as we remembered--his exuberance still thrilling, but when LeBlanc looked at him meltingly, he turned his eyes to the audience for an instant as if to say, “Am I lucky or what?”
His gallantry was the perfect frame for LeBlanc, who even in this last performance took risks, playfully pushing the musicians and conductor Martin West with her crystalline phrasing, nailing a series of turns with a flourish and sailing—even floating—into Garcia’s arms in the coda.
Interspersed throughout the evening were video clips from LeBlanc’s long career, mixed in with tributes from her colleagues. Predictably much of the video, assembled by Austin Forbord, featured her astonishingly brilliant technical moments, breathtaking turns and virtuoso pointe work. But while most interviewees are inclined to mention her technique first, they almost always end by talking about how moving and engaging her dancing became, and there was no better place to see that sensitive and intelligent artistry than in Lar Lubovitch’s “My Funny Valentine,” which she performed on Saturday with Griff Braun, of Lubovitch’s company.
During intermission, LeBlanc’s early ballet teacher, Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet’s Marcia Dale Weary, recalled her young student. “She was so sweet, but so focused-- I knew right from the start that she would be a ballerina,” remembered Weary, “She still looks like the same little girl to me,” she added wistfully.
LeBlanc has always been best at playing real women, not airy-fairy types. While other dancers can look like unfamiliar, otherworldly creatures when you see them off stage, LeBlanc is always strikingly real—the same person you see onstage is the person you meet offstage. Even in dreamy roles like the Adagio from Helgi Tomasson’s 1995 “Sonata,” which LeBlanc danced with Ruben Martin in the second half of the program to the accompaniment of David Kadarauch on cello and Nataly’a Feygina on piano, she manages to compress a womanly earthiness into the expressiveness of an arching back or extended limbs.
“As a tall partner, I thought there would never be a possibility for me to work with this woman who made everything look easy,” said former SFB principal Benjamin Pierce, whose duet with LeBlanc in 2000 in Julia Adam’s “Night” remains etched in the memories of those who saw it. “I admired Tina so much but she was like a forbidden fruit, so ‘Night’ was like a gift. She had a reverence for the duality of two people working together and of her place in a big, beautiful company.”
Often hailed as the company’s premier technician, and admired by colleagues and audiences alike for her sunny vivacity, LeBlanc’s very presence in a ballet could immediately ground an entire cast. For her finale, LeBlanc shifted to Balanchine classicism with the pas de deux and polonaise from “Theme and Variations.” Partnered attentively by Davit Karapetyan, LeBlanc navigated the hair-raising choreography with extraordinary nerve and grace.
No matter whom the partner, when LeBlanc looks at him, there is a particular tilt of his head as he looks back at her and the warmth of her smile as she balanced steadily on one stretched pointe seemed to inspire Karapetyan, who walked around her gazing admiringly.
At the curtain call, as tears streamed down LeBlanc’s face, Helgi Tomasson led a parade of dancers--including Nicolas Blanc, Pascal Molat, Gennadi Nedvigin, fellow ballet moms Katita Waldo and Kristin Long, Joan Boada on crutches and LeBlanc’s former partners David Palmer and Parrish Maynard—who paid one more tribute to her. Garcia fell, only part-comically, to both knees before her, but perhaps no men affected her more than her two young sons Marinko and Sasha, whose pride in their mom’s evening was clear.
At the end, LeBlanc took one last bow, mouthing to the audience, “I’ll miss you” as the curtain fell.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
96 Hours: Koret Museum Days
The Koret Foundation marks Mother's Day, as well as its 30th anniversary, Sunday by sponsoring free admission at 17 Bay Area museums and science centers. Participating museums are the Asian Art Museum, Bay Area Discovery Museum, Chabot Space & Science Center, Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose, Contemporary Jewish Museum, Exploratorium, Judah L. Magnes Museum, Lawrence Hall of Science, Legion of Honor, de Young Museum, Museum of the African Diaspora, Oakland Museum of California, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Zoo, San Jose Museum of Art, Tech Museum of Innovation and Zeum.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Dance review: Eifman Ballet's 'Onegin'
It would be hard to overstate just how beloved Alexander Pushkin's 19th century poem 'Eugene Onegin' is to the Russian people. It has inspired Tchaikovsky's famous opera and John Cranko's 1965 ballet, and its translation alone has sparked endless controversies. So there's a whiff of hubris surrounding Boris Eifman's re-envisioning of this classic romantic story, which received its West Coast premiere when Cal Performances presented Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg in Zellerbach Hall over the weekend.It would be hard to overstate just how beloved Alexander Pushkin's 19th century poem "Eugene Onegin" is to the Russian people. It has inspired Tchaikovsky's famous opera and John Cranko's 1965 ballet, and its translation alone has sparked endless controversies. So there's a whiff of hubris surrounding Boris Eifman's re-envisioning of this classic romantic story, which received its West Coast premiere when Cal Performances presented Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg in Zellerbach Hall over the weekend.
By the same token, though, it would be hard to overstate the popularity of the Eifman Ballet, an intense and dramatically gifted troupe of 55 dancers, founded by artistic director and choreographer Boris Eifman in the 1970s.
If you're looking for the lyricism of Cranko's choreography, however, the romanticism of Tchaikovsky's opera, or really anything resembling Pushkin's czarist-era tale, this is probably not your ballet. True, a naive young Tatiana still falls in love with the cynical and feckless Onegin, and he needlessly kills her sister's fiance, Lensky. Tatiana still marries a blind colonel and rejects Onegin's advances in the end, but that's about all that's left of the original.
Once you let your preconceptions go and decide not to worry about details of the story line, you can sit back and simply enjoy the stream of bizarre dream episodes, the high-flying acrobatic pas de deux and the seductively mesmerizing rock concert panache.
Set to a recorded pastiche of greatest hits from Tchaikovsky interspersed with screaming rock guitar solos by Alexander Sitkovetsky, this "Onegin" unfolds in a turbulent post-Soviet milieu, a reasonable parallel to the nihilism of 19th century Russia.
As the dewy-eyed, bookish Tatiana, Maria Abashova is charmingly gawky and coltish, though the sheer muscle behind her textbook pitch turns would make a Martha Graham dancer blanch. Abashova pairs well, interestingly enough, with the engaging Natalia Povoroznyuk, who plays her sister, Olga. By turns louche and anguished, Oleg Gabyshev's handsome Onegin overshadows Dmitry Fisher's Lensky, but it's Sergei Volobuev who seems to have the most fun - in unrelieved black, from his beret and shades to his shiny jacket, except for a thick gold chain around his neck - as the blind colonel.
It would be too simplistic to dismiss Eifman's style as all flash and shameless eroticism. His attempts to take a venerated Russian story and place it in the context of the New Russia may be audacious, but they also reveal not just an undeniably appealing streak of wild romanticism, but a keenly observed parable about the self-questioning doubt that dogs the modern Russian character - and the destructive yearning for the unattainable hearts' desire that dogs us all.
This review first appeared on SFGate.com.Thursday, April 30, 2009
Clogging falls in step across America
Afternoon sunlight pours through the windows of ODC's Shotwell studios as Ian Enriquez's clogging class thunders away in the first-floor studio.
Sweating and intently focused, the dozen or so dancers track his moves and repeat them. Any misstep will be plainly heard, but the class - which is peppered with students from all age groups - pounds gamely away at the wooden floor to the not-exactly bluegrass strains of 'Let's Hear It for the Boy.'
Read more at the SF Chronicle website.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Albany Middle School teacher puts on the hits
There's an earnest cluster of middle school kids up on the stage singing, but it sounds as if the volume is low.
"Exit signs!" booms a voice from the back of the theater. Everyone lifts their chins, and the voices project to the green exit signs at the back of Albany High School's Little Theater as a great bear of a man dressed in jeans and a black Lahaina Divers T-shirt strides up the aisle.
It's the first dress rehearsal of Albany Middle School's annual musical, and veteran drama teacher Tom Gamba is steering the 90-plus-student cast of his latest, "The Directors," toward Thursday's opening night.
Read more at the SF Chronicle website.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Dance Review: Lerman's solemn, moving 'Dances' grips audience
'Try that word out loud - genocide,' says dancer Benjamin Wegman during Sunday night's performance of Liz Lerman Dance Exchange's 'Small Dances About Big Ideas' at the Jewish Community Center in San Francisco. 'It's a lot for one person to take in,' he concedes.Tackling difficult issues - mass killings, bodies exhumed and identified, rape, torture - Lerman and her 11 dancers trace stories from the Holocaust to the mass killings in Bosnia and Rwanda. They're told often through specific histories, not only of victims, but also of those who sought justice, a "bone woman" who traces the graves of victims of the Rwandan genocide, the Polish activist Raphael Lemkin, who first used the term "genocide" and three Fates, led by the regal Martha Wittman, who interweave among the victims and the judges.
Read more at SF Chronicle.com.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Ditching your lawn? Plan replacement carefully
Estimates vary, but those lush, green turf grass lawns can account for 50 to 80 percent of a household's yearly water usage - adding up to thousands of gallons of water per acre of lawn."Conserving the copious amounts of water that thirsty lawns suck up has become such a priority that counties from Marin to Santa Clara are offering homeowners rebates for removing their lawns. Even small businesses are offering incentives, such as the Ploughshares Nursery's "Tear Out Your Lawn" challenge in which customers can get 20 percent off drought-tolerant plants through May 31 if they remove 40 percent of their lawns.
Read more at the SF Chronicle website.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Jelly Belly Stickerpalooza: Fun that sticks
Move over, Willy Wonka. The Chocolate Factory might be fun, but for a truly scrumdiddlyumptious outing mixed in with a bit of sticker creativity, check out the Jelly Belly Factory's Stickerpalooza, which started on Wednesday and runs through Friday at the factory's Fairfield (Solano County) location.Although the factory tour is a memorable and fun trip for the family, lines for it can be long during spring break. But if you have an intrepid member of your party who's willing to wait in the tour line, the rest of your group can have fun with Stickerpalooza, says Barbara Marino, a spokesperson for Mrs. Grossman's. The beloved Petaluma sticker company, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, is bringing a bit of sticker fun to the candy factory. It certainly beats staring at the jelly-bean portrait of Ronald Reagan for half an hour.
Read more at Jelly Belly Stickerpalooza: Fun that sticks.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Mudflat Festival: Learn about Richardson Bay
If you have a hankering to get down and dirty, head off to the Richardson Bay Audubon Center & Sanctuary's second annual Mudflat Festival. Timed to coincide with the reopening of Richardson Bay sanctuary's 900 acres to boats and public access, the event on Saturday will feature wildflower walks, a compost demo, plus art and poetry exhibits featuring works by kids from all over the Bay Area. The centerpiece, though, will be the opening of the beach area for kids to play in the mudflats and the tide pools.Read more at SFGate.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
The critic gets criticized
Interesting letter to the Chronicle today criticizing my criticism:
Read more at the SF Chronicle site.
Editor - Having read the dance reviews of newly adopted dance critic Mary Ellen Hunt over the past couple months, I am dismayed at the improper and outdated direction in which The Chronicle is channeling its dance criticism. Hunt's articles offer little more than eloquent narratives of the works she is 'reviewing.'Mercer, who danced with Company C, seems to have a very particular idea of what critics writing for a daily newspaper should be doing. So what do you think out there?
When you look beyond the veil of her elaborate use of long descriptive words that she strings together in a poetic phrases you can see that there is almost no actual reviewing involved in her writings. In the past several decades much literature on the nature and purpose of dance criticism has been published, yet it seems that only a few dance critics and no newspaper editor outside of New York City have stumbled upon it.Dance criticism has evolved to a much greater level than dealing with summaries and description as is characteristic of Hunt's writings. It has now been shown that it's possible to add a level of intelligent analysis to a review! If a dance review doesn't address the values of a piece of art (why was it made, why is it deserving of a review, how it adds to or advances the art form, how it challenges convention, how it directs culture) the review offers little contribution and is nearly pointless.
By only offering description and summaries of works in your dance reviews you are not cultivating an audience of intelligent viewers who will be inspired to engage in seeing dance or even continue reading your articles, you are only cultivating an audience who knows how to appreciate a well-worded summary. Having been a professional dancer and pursuing academic dance research, I am constantly frustrated at how rarely the general public approaches dance with intelligent thought.
- Elliot Gordon Mercer
Read more at the SF Chronicle site.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Deer Hollow Farm: Chance to pet animals on tours
With spring in the air, there's no better time to visit Deer Hollow Farm, which welcomes new lambs and kids - the goat-y kind - to their charming menagerie of pigs, chickens, rabbits, ducks and geese with spring farm tours.
Read more at the SF Chronicle website.
Read more at the SF Chronicle website.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Miller-McCune | Article | Fine Arts Journalism Faces Bleak Future with Entrepreneurial Verve
With newspaper vanishing, Tom Jacobs wonders where the critics will go. (I know some people will have their own tart response to that question!)
"A former staff writer with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (the industry's most recent print casualty, which became an online-only product as of March 17) and Seattle Weekly, McLennan also heads the scaled-back National Arts Journalism Program, and in that capacity he has been tracking some disturbing figures. He estimates that in 2005, there were approximately 5,000 staff positions on American newspapers that involved writing about the arts. These include critics, feature writers, reporters who cover cultural news — and the many journalists who juggle all three of those roles."Today, he estimates that due to layoffs, cutbacks and the closure of several prominent papers (including, another recent victim, Denver's Rocky Mountain News), that number is down to 2,500. That's a 50 percent decline in only four years — a disproportionate loss even for an industry in decline. (Advertising Age recently estimated that one newspaper job in four has been lost since 1990.) Sean Means, film critic of the Salt Lake City Tribune, is independently keeping a running tally of colleagues who have been laid off over the past three years. The total is up to 49.
Most newspapers continue to cover the world of culture using freelancers and (in the case of film and television) wire-service copy to supplement the remaining staff. A few, including the Los Angeles Times, have inaugurated blogs on their Web sites to get arts news out more quickly."
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