Fans of Japanese children's TV and manga comics may have already heard of the Buddhist monk Ikkyu Sojun, the roguish, unconventional mischief-maker known as Crazy Cloud. With 'The Crazy Cloud Collection' - which butoh dance and experimental theater troupe inkBoat will premiere this weekend at Theater Artaud - Shinichi Iova-Koga and Ko Murobushi explore the complexity of the human experience through the story of this 15th century poet and monk.
Once a photographer and filmmaker, Iova-Koga's metier is storytelling through visceral imagery; butoh master Murobushi was a student of Tatsumi Hijikata, considered a founder of the butoh tradition. If Murobushi carries on Hijikata's legacy, then Iova-Koga, as well as inkBoat, the company he founded in 1998, is an integral part of the generation that takes butoh in a new direction, a fusion of the form with experimental theater and improvisation. As Iova-Koga and his company set off to Florida to develop the work with Murobushi, we talked about the nature of the collaboration.
The San Francisco Ballet School showcase, which opened at the Novellus Theater on Wednesday night, and continues through Saturday night, always makes a nice cap on the whirlwind of a season of dance. After just getting over the sentimental "backwards look" as we say goodbye to retiring dancers-- this year we lost the always elegant, and in my opinion, often underestimated Katita Waldo-- we get to square our shoulders and look ahead to the next generation.
Odd though it may sound, I really do enjoy the initial demonstrations from the younger, less advanced students -- Levels 2-5--who showed off a careful schooling and lots of charm. From Level 6, ten ladies and ten men offered a lively re-envisioning of a Tarantella, with nods to Bournonville's "Napoli." But this year, I couldn't help but be struck by the winnowing of numbers --some 46 light blue clad girls populate the Level 2 classes, but by the time you get to the young women of Level 5, there are only 18.
All of this made me think, a little wistfully, of a comment in "Holiday of Ballet," a film about the 1981 International Competition of Ballet Artists in Moscow, which was adjudicated by such ballet luminaries as Alicia Alonso, Maya Plisetskaya and Galina Ulanova. "One of the key problems in the development of ballet discussed during the competition is the problem of preserving classical traditions. It is necessary to maintain the precise choreographic text, purity of classical forms and to foster a fine feeling of classical lines. The technical criteria are becoming greater, more complex and are changing. Only the severity of of classical forms remain untouched...The laws of competition are implacable, "the narrator intones, as faces disappear from the screen and the group becomes more select.
For folks who are always interested in the next generation of dancers, student showcases like this are a treat. We get more than just a passing glimpse of the faces that might crop up as peasants in "Giselle" or in the Dance of the Hours in "Coppelia" next season. There's such a wonderful freshness and energy that emanates from these young dancers, like Geraud Wielick and Henry Sidford, who lent athleticism and power to Parrish Maynard's "Lusions," which the upper level dancers performed to close out the first half of the program.
As I sat in the theater and mused over what it will be like to see some of them as they head into professional careers though, I couldn't also help but hope that this generation of dancers will be encouraged to "foster that fine feeling of classical lines." Unheard of technical feats are becoming the norm-- martial arts moves like tornado kicks and 540s are already showing up in classical variations. Nothing wrong with pushing the envelope there. But, IMHO, it's the search for poetry and artistry that not only wins over an audience, but also ultimately advances ballet itself.
In addition to the dancers mentioned above, Elizabeth Powell gave a notably self-possessed performance, and a standout among the advanced women was certainly Nicole Ciapponi, a young Canadian who's been seen at the Youth America Grand Prix and was a silver medalist at the 2008 Adeline Genee competition. Partnering with Francisco Mungamba in "Lusions," she brought a refreshingly focussed energy and dynamic muscality onto the stage. During the excerpts from "Sleeping Beauty," Ciapponi also danced the role of Aurora in the Vision Scene, but if you missed out last night, you can catch her tonight (Friday) dancing the Rose Adagio. Whichever company she winds up with, she'll be a dancer to watch.
Check out her confidently grounded Shades variation from "La Bayadere" on YouTube.
Walking into the diminutive and yet charmingly offbeat Museum of Pez Memorabilia, you may not be able to get your kids past the front room, which is essentially wall-to-wall Pez dispensers - featuring everything from 'Star Wars' ' General Grievous to Po the kung fu panda to Hello Kitty and Barbie. But if you can persuade the kids to check out the next room - possibly with the promise of a Pez dispenser of their own on the way out - there's a lot of fun stuff in the actual museum itself.
In fact, according to Gary Doss - the owner and enthusiastic fount of Pez and classic toy information - the display includes just about every Pez character manufactured since the 1950s, when the company began selling the candy holders with the toy heads. In an impressive case housing vintage Pez dispensers, Doss points out Casper the Friendly Ghost, Popeye and Mickey Mouse as three of the earliest characters licensed to Pez.
Are we consumers, consumables or both? It's the question at the heart of 'The Consumption Series,' the dance-theater piece performed by Charles Slender's FACT/SF troupe.
'I had been living in Russia for a few years,' says Slender, a UC Berkeley grad who danced for Provincial Dances Theatre. 'Every time I came back home to Southern California, I would be struck by the way that American culture, and specifically Southern California culture, consumes. It was much different from the way that Russians consume.'
For months, I've been looking forward to Smuin Ballet's spring season, which opened at Yerba Buena's Novellus Theater. In fact it started as soon as the company announced that Jiri Kylian's "Petite Mort" would be on the program.
(Smuin Ballet's Brooke Reynolds and Ryan Camou in Jiri Kylian's Petite Mort. Photo: Scot Goodman)
Few Bay Area companies even attempt Kylian's work, which is really a pity. But after the performance that the company unveiled last Friday, I can only hope this won't be the last time Smuin Ballet tackles his work--these are ballets that needs to be seen here and the dancers are remarkably suited to the style.
In past years, I've seen quite a few other companies perform "Petite Mort" --it's a favorite ballet of mine. Of course, every troupe puts its own distinctive spin on the piece. Some give it a preternaturally cool execution and gasp-worthy synchronicity, others offer vivid movement quality.
In other versions, I have often admired the perfect execution -- the way the men spin their foils precisely in sync with each other, or swing them widely by the point so that every blade makes the same angle. But in those cases, I'm drawn in by the framework, but not necessarily the heart. What I love about Smuin Ballet's take on Kylian's "confrontation of the sexes" is the easy sensuality that the company brings to the choreography. As I read Kylian's choreography, it's not a sexy ballet per se, but then of course, with a title like "Petite Mort," the underlying sexual tension of man versus woman is hard to miss.
On Friday, as Brooke Reynolds dug into the duet with Ryan Camou with an inspired abandon, the immediate appeal was the sense that I was watching real people -- honest-to-goodness, flesh-and-blood. These were not just aesthetically pleasing, idealized movers doing things that regular folks could never do, but warm-blooded human beings capable of bringing great maturity to the movement.
There's a great move that the couples perform midway through "Petite Mort," in which the men hover over the women's bodies as their partners arch beneath them in a kind of jagged reflection on the floor. The pose itself is one of the memorable moments in this ballet-- a sculptural shape of tension and release that you can appreciate, almost dispassionately, for its abstract beauty.
(Travis Walker and Jessica Touchet in Jiri Kylian's Petite Mort. Photo: Scot Goodman)
Watching the company repeat the move on Friday night though, I was struck by the sense of conversation between the couples-- not that they were consciously attempting to telegraph a thought or make you read an agenda in their body language, but something far more subtle -- a kind of communion between two bodies that takes you beyond words.
Days later I was still thinking about it --what exactly passed between the dancers, what did I think I saw, what did it all mean?--which I always take to be the mark of a great performance--one that would be worth seeing more than once.
The company's YBC program continues through May 16, before going on to the Lesher Center in Walnut Creek (May 21-22), the Flint Center in Cupertino (May 29-30), and the Sunset Center in Carmel (June 4-5).
Sorry for the lapse in posting, everyone. I've finally managed to manage a blog migration from FTP publishing to plain old Blogger publishing. Hopefully everything will continue to work seamlessly-- keep your fingers crossed and please bear with me as I work through repairing broken links and such!
In the mean time, I'll be posting a new review later on today! Happy Monday!
'No, you won't lose any children to the carnivorous plants,' Lau Hodges, guest services manager at San Francisco's Conservatory of Flowers, says reassuringly.
She means that none of the hundreds of hungry plants on display at the Conservatory's 'Chomp 2! Return of the Carnivorous Plants' will be eating children - but you just might find your kids losing their hearts to the exquisite cobra-like Darlingtonia californica or succulent Asian pitcher plants.
Fans of Japanese children's TV and manga comics may have already heard of the Buddhist monk Ikkyu Sojun, the roguish, unconventional mischief-maker known as Crazy Cloud. With 'The Crazy Cloud Collection' - which butoh dance and experimental theater troupe inkBoat will premiere this weekend at Theater Artaud - Shinichi Iova-Koga and Ko Murobushi explore the complexity of the human experience through the story of this 15th century poet and monk.
