SFB Student Showcase

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.