San Francisco Ballet's Nutcracker

Photos by Erik Tomasson/SFBallet

December 21, 2017 
San Francisco Ballet’s “Nutcracker” 
War Memorial Opera House 

 It was five minutes to curtain and to say things were not going well was an understatement.

 “I don’t want to see it. I want Daddy!”

 “Sweetie, we just sat down.”

 “I don’t want to see it, I want to go home.”

 “But what about the Sugar Plum Fairy?”

 “I DON’T WANT TO! WANNA GO HOME!”

 Up until this moment I had imagined that I was “Mom-ing” pretty darn well. My three and a half year old daughter loved watching ballet rehearsals, and had just the week before sat through a Nutcracker suite for a good hour. We watched the “Nutcracker” DVD straight through (with only a fast forward past the big battle scene) and she had been captivated, immediately demanding to watch it again all the way through.

 “Well, now,” I thought, “ if she can watch the ballet twice through, she’s surely focused enough to see the real thing.” I like to imagine that I’m not a ballet mom. But as someone who grew up adoring the yearly tradition of seeing the Balanchine “Nutcracker” with my Dad every year, I was perhaps a little over-anxious to get that tradition going with my own daughter.

So on Thursday night, we got dressed up, and headed to the opera house quite early to sit and have dinner together in the cafe downstairs. She was delighted with the decorations and keenly observing other folks in their “party clothes.” We went upstairs for an obligatory photo in front of the Christmas tree and then headed into the theater. She had a program clutched in one hand and I even remembered to snag a booster cushion for the chair. I felt like a pro.

 The wailing began almost as soon as we were seated. This was nothing I hadn’t seen before, but, as they say, it’s different when it’s your kid doing the banshee cry. I’m not sure what triggered it. I want to blame the kids sitting behind us talking about the battle with the King of the Mice. In any case, suddenly she was sobbing and adamant that she wanted to leave. At 6:54 p.m.

 I won’t bore you with the details of the negotiation, but we came to a hasty agreement that we could stand in the very back in standing room (so as to be able to make an escape more easily.) I couldn’t say this aloud, but I had a firm conviction in my mind that she would have only to hear the strains of Tchaikovsky’s score and I could win her over. The Nutcracker could win her over. Ballet could win her over. And as it turned out, I was right.

 She hid her face in the lapel of my coat as we stood at the back of the house. But as the ever-beguiling Pascal Molat fussed with his Nutcracker, she couldn’t resist peeking, before ducking back under the coat.

 “Do you want to see?”

 “I don’t want to see!” came the violent sotto voce response.

 But as the music built up and the tree lights flickered on, her head emerged again.

“There are kids!”

 “Indeed,” I replied in a neutral tone.

 And the flock of youngsters onstage, comporting themselves so charmingly, brought her another inch from under the coat.

 “What a lovely dancing doll,” I murmured.

 “Her dress is pink,” she mused thoughtfully. “Like the Sugar Plum Fairy.”

 Jahna Franziskonis and Alexander Reneff-Olson’s sweet solos intrigued her enough that she was still watching when Wei Wang emerged magically from his box as the Nutcracker doll.

 “It’s him,” she whispered dramatically.

 “Indeed,” I replied in a neutral tone putting a finger to my lips.

 As the music took a wistful tone and the guests began to leave, I asked her if she wanted to step outside so she wouldn’t see the battle. There were limits after all.

The affirmative nod came quick and we went out to the grand lobby, where we examined the tree and the Nutcracker dolls. I could hear the strains of the music--Christmas tree building, gargantuan furniture rolling in, soldiers deployed, and mice arrayed against them. The sounds of battle, and then the unmistakable denouement. I’m sorry, Sean Bennett, for having missed what I’m sure was the glorious demise of your Mouse King.

 “Do you want to go back inside? We can see the dance of the snowflakes now,” I suggested.

In my mind the chances of her agreeing were 50-50, so I was a little surprised when she said yes, and started leading me back to the door. We bellied up to the standing room rail again, this time joined by a father who was holding his daughter of about the same age. He and I exchanged rueful glances and I turned my attention to the stage in time to catch Molat lifting the mask off the Nutcracker to reveal the handsome Tiit Helimets.

 I’ve seen the “Nutcracker” so many times, and I’ve seen Helimets in the role more times than I can count on one hand. But seeing it through my daughter’s eyes, I have never so appreciated the chivalrous care and princely attention that he lavished on his Clara (Chloe Treanor). His Nutcracker Prince partnered her with the same expressive detail and graciousness that he offered her older counterpart, Sofiane Sylve, in the grand pas de deux. Suddenly I could feel myself falling in love with the ballet again after many years of a sort of jaded love-hate relationship with it.

Photos by Erik Tomasson/SFBallet

The music began to swell, and my favorite transition, the King and Queen of the Snow emerged from the blackness to usher in a blinding snowstorm. The stage had my daughter’s full attention now as Maria Kochetkova and Joseph Walsh zipped and darted expertly through what can only be described as a mounting blizzard. The snowflakes were glamorous and nimble and Kochetkova was her steady regal self, even as the gusting winds swirled the white stuff onstage, surely making visibility near zero. At the end, though I wasn't watching the dancers, I was watching my daughter as she clambered at the rail to get a better look.

 “They’re dancing in the snow!”

 “Indeed,” I replied in a neutral tone.

 The curtain came down and we headed into intermission, twirling nonstop through the lobby. She didn’t say much, preferring to promenade me in grander and grander circles. But under it all, I wondered, would we be able to sit through the second act?

 At last firmly positioned in our seats, I largely ignored the patrons in front of and behind us, who observed us with guarded expressions. The lights went down and I wrapped an arm around her shoulders, enjoying the sudden look of concentration on her face.

 As Sasha De Sola bourreed elegantly into the midst of assorted butterflies, dragonflies and ladybugs, I murmured, “Look, it’s the Sugar Plum Fairy.”

 My daughter turned to me with one finger to her lips and said, “Shhhh.”

 “Indeed,” I replied in a neutral tone and settled back in the seat.

Tickets to the Nutcracker are available on www.sfballet.org.

"Get In Front": Dancers raising awareness and funds for cancer prevention

It's a crazy thing, but just about every month of the year is marked for awareness of some kind of cancer, from Melanoma Monday to Brain Tumor Awareness Month to Thyroid Cancer Awareness Month. Sad to say, cancer is on the minds of a huge cross-section of the human population, and with good reason. According to the American Cancer Society, over a million people will be diagnosed with cancer each year in the US alone. Odds are that one in two men and one in three women will develop some type of cancer during their lives.

What you don't hear as much about is the research being done on preventive measures, and that kind of work is what inspired the Get In Front gala, which raises money for the Cancer Prevention Institute of California.

The 2013 gala will take place at Yerba Buena's Lam ResearchTheater on November 12, and a constellation of stars from Bay Area dance companies--including San Francisco Ballet, ODC, Ballet San Jose, AXIS DanceCompany, Smuin Ballet, Renegade Rockers, Zhukov Dance Theatre, Robert Moses'Kin Dance Company, LEVYdance, and Margaret Jenkins Dance Company--are on the program.

Last year's Get in Front gala was an enormous success, selling out the Herbst Theatre and raising nearly $150,000 for CPIC. This year the logistics have been a challenge, with organizers James Sofranko, Garen Scribner and Margaret Karl operating in two different companies, indeed, on two different continents.

When they first conceived the gala, all three were dancing with San Francisco Ballet, but since then Scribner has moved to Nederlands DansTheatre, based in The Hague. 

James Sofranko and Garen Scribner

I sat down to chat with Sofranko and Scribner at a cafe in San Francisco when the former had returned from a New York tour and the latter happened to be in the area for  NDT's shows at Cal Performances.

You're in two different cities, in two different companies, on different continents--how you are both managing it this year?

JS: We have a good team of people! It's not just Garen and I, but also our friend Margaret Karl, is also a producer of the show. She's handling the after- and the pre- parties.

GS: there's the three of us and also a project manager that we hired, as well as support from the CPIC staff, they take care of all the administrative and back end details, which is great. Last year was our first year doing the event so we had a huge learning curve. We really didn't know what the project would end up looking like, and it ended up becoming a big deal, completely sold out. As we went through that process though, we  tracked what we did, how we did it, who took care of it. So this year we were a little more specific about who would do what. Jim has been in charge of communicating with the companies and dealing with programming. Margaret is in charge of all of the events, contracts with the theater, things like that. And I headed up the development portion, working with sponsors and fundraising and community. And then creatively we handled the details and big decisions as a group.

Who are some of the performers this year?

JS: Sarah Van Patten and Daniel Deveison are doing a pas de deux from Yuri Possokhov's "Fusion." Michael McGraw will be playing live for it.

GS: Also Isaac Hernandez's little brother Esteban, who just joined San Francisco Ballet right out of the Royal Ballet School, will be doing the Slave variation from Corsaire, and he is fabulous. Scott Marlowe from LEVYdance is doing a solo, and ODC is bringing a work of Brenda Way's, Unintended Consequences.

JS: And Ballet San Jose is sending a pas de deux with the Cuban dancer Jorge Lopez Barani and Jumna Ige, they'll do Diana & Actaeon.

GS: Also there are two world premieres, one from Zhukov Dance Theater and one from Axis Dance Company.

And are you guys choreographing this year?

JS:  Not this year. Last year I had a piece in it, but this year we had so many companies wanting to be a part of it.

GS: Last year we didn't know what kind of participation we would have, but so many people came forth and said yeah, we would love to be a part of it. This year people sent us videos and so we were able to really look at the program and figure out how to put it together with a greater variety.

JS: For galas you're bound to get a lot of pas de deux, so we encouraged people to do group pieces this year, and that's been great. We have larger works from Smuin Ballet, from Robert Moses' KIN, from Margaret Jenkins.

GS: Renegade Rockers, one of the oldest breaker crews in the country will also be there, it's an amazing crew that has a group of kids that they work with who are also unbelievable performers.

JS: We're going to have over 50 dancers total in the program.

And what is your fundraising goal this year?

GS: We would like to raise $250,000. It sounds like a lot, but a goal is a goal for a reason, you shoot for it and if you hit it then great and if not, you did your best and still got as close to it as possible. But we're doing really well, and we've had some generous sponsorships from individuals and organizations like The Fisher Family, Tim Dattels and Kristine Johnson, Reed Krakoff, the Fullerton Family Foundation, Fremont Bank, Onyx Pharmaceuticals, airBNB and Genentech, the support has been amazing.

JS: And the goal of course is to raise money, but it's also to raise awareness about cancer prevention and the research CPIC does to prevent cancer. Their research can inform all of us on a day-to-day basis on practically every decision we make, from exercise to diet, to the air we breathe --it all relates to cancer in our lives. Cancer is becoming more and more prevalent and we need as much knowledge out there as possible.

Do you have a personal reason for wanting to support this cause in particular?

JS: My grandmother had breast cancer, she survived, but still, it was a scary experience for the family.

GS: And we recently lost a Ballet San Jose dancer to cancer.

JS: We lost two people in the ballet world actually. Tiffany Glenn, from Ballet San Jose, and also one of our fly men at SFB, Kevin Rogers. he was still with us last year  and we dedicated the show to him.

GS: What we've found is that getting exposure and raising awareness for what CPIC does is difficult, because people don't want to talk about cancer. It's something that they want to avert their eyes from, rather than look at head on. What we really like about this organization and their ethos is that it's about taking action now and thinking about what we can do today to help us out in the future.  I like the organization for that reason. They're not so cure-oriented, they're not looking for a fix. Trying to fix a problem when it's already there is so much harder than stopping it before it starts. We thought that presenting world class dance, with these incredible athletes and artists, in connection with this cause was a perfect way to manifest that idea of prevention.

So how does it feel being on this side of a show, organizing rather than performing? Do you like it?

JS: I do like it. It's a little more responsibility, but it really gives you insight. I've all been on tour numerous times with San Francisco Ballet, and as a dancer you don't really think about how all these things are done. You go to your dressing room and there's a sign that tells you where to go, the schedule is already made. Now I understand all the energy and time that goes into making that happen.

Have you thought about doing this kind of event in other places, or expanding this one?

JS: I think there is a lot of potential there, as we saw last year doing this gala. There are artists who want to give back to the community--musicians, visual artists, technical artists. There are so many way that new ideas can come out of this. We want to look at how can we use everyone's talents, pool them for the greater good of the community.

GS: I also think that there is a misconception out there that high level, world class dance is out of reach for the general public, unless you have experience, or you've danced yourself or you grew up watching it, that it would be hard to appreciate it.  I think dancers internalize that attitude but that a performance like this, in a way, gives them an opportunity to ground their work and put it in the context of the broader scope of things.  Being able to give back this way makes dancers feel that what they do really means something to the people around them--not just the donors and balletomanes, but to everybody in the community.

Shanghai Ballet: 'Butterfly Lovers' combines ballet, Chinese dance

Photo courtesy of CAMI

A woman disguised as a boy falls in love with a man she can never have - it's the stuff of romantic tragedies from Shakespeare to "Yentl" and beyond. In ancient China, a similar legend took on fame as the tale of "The Butterfly Lovers" and this weekend, the Shanghai Ballet will bring this classic story of star-crossed love to Cal Performances at Zellerbach Hall on the UC Berkeley campus.

"There are four great legendary tales in Chinese culture and 'The Butterfly Lovers' is one of them," says choreographer and company director Xin Lili by e-mail. "I was drawn to it because it is a beautiful love story - it expresses universal emotions."

Read More: Shanghai Ballet: 'Butterfly Lovers' combines ballet, Chinese dance

'Being Raymond Chandler' premieres this weekend

Photo by Pak Han

"Dead men are heavier than broken hearts," writes Raymond Chandler in "The Big Sleep." And, as in the best hard-boiled crime novels, murder and heartache with a touch of black humor are the driving forces in Thirteenth Floor Dance Theater's "Being Raymond Chandler," which premieres at the ODC Dance Commons this weekend.

A case of writer's block haunts the titular novelist, whose stylish detective tales introduced us to the world of private eyes like Philip Marlowe. Choreographer Jenny McAllister, who also directs Thirteenth Floor, has been a fan of Chandler's books since she was a child, she says.

Read more: 'Being Raymond Chandler' premieres this weekend

Dance review: Island tales inspire Palace of Fine Arts hula show

Photo by Lin Cariffe

Long before the Internet, the highly literate Hawaiians of the mid-19th and early 20th centuries tracked, recorded and celebrated Hawaiian life in hundreds of native-language newspapers.

Poems by kings, serialized epics about gods and goddesses, political essays - all this and more inspired Patrick Makuakane's latest evening-length hula show, "Ka Leo Kanaka" or "The Voice of the People," which Na Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu premiered on Saturday night at the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre.

Read more: Island tales inspire Palace of Fine Arts hula show

Grand National Rodeo at the Cow Palace

Photo by Phil Doyle

Dust off your Stetson and pull on your cowboy boots: The Wild West comes back to the big city this weekend when the annual Grand National Rodeo, Horse Show and Livestock Show starts at the Cow Palace.

Two jam-packed weekends include not only a livestock exhibition but also equestrian competitions, stock dog trials, a daily Western marketplace, nightly barbecues, swing dance music and the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association show Friday and Saturday evenings.

Read more: Grand National Rodeo at the Cow Palace

Dance troupe to display its handiwork

Photo by RJ Muna

What dance troupe wouldn't want to capture new audiences, enticing viewers who might never have experienced a dance performance before? Reaching out to a broad spectrum of people in a striking and unusual way was foremost on the minds of Janice Garrett and Charles Moulton, co-directors of Garrett Moulton, when they decided to mount their latest work "A Show of Hands," which opens this week in the atrium in the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco.

By design, the shows take place at various times in the afternoon each day. Garrett and Moulton loved the idea that there might be after-school programs for kids, or an elder lunch program, or just people coming to exercise, all going on around the same time as the performances. That would allow the company to reach different audiences every day.

Read more: Dance troupe to display its handiwork

Dance Review: 'Yulan' dance review: Art, circus intersect

'Yulan' dance review: Art, circus intersect

Photo by John Gerbetz

Art and circus meet with a cosmic clash in Dennis Nahat's eye-catching and flamboyant "Yulan," which had its U.S. premiere at the California Theatre in San Jose on Thursday night.

Performed by some four dozen members of the venerable Dalian Acrobatic Troupe from China, "Yulan" is the first of two cross-Pacific collaborations that Nahat's new production company, Theatre Ventures International, and United Star Performing Arts Corp. will host in San Jose this year. In December, the Dalian troupe will return with Nahat's "Terracotta Prince," and if it's anything like this cirque nouveau spectacular, it will be worth a holiday outing.

Nahat directs "Yulan" and shares choreographic credits with Song Xiaoxue and Zhang Hongfei, but the real reasons to see the show are the jaw-dropping performers, who seem to defy laws of physics and anatomy at every turn.

A theme of creation and destruction on the path to perfection runs throughout the night, but mainly that's a pretext for showing off impressive acrobatic skills. Ultimately, it's best not to strain too hard to fit a narrative to the 12 scenes, which take us from galaxy formation to frozen tundras and bubbling springs to the flowering of the yulan, or magnolia, of the title.

Why the spinning diabolo act in the Metamorphosis scene? What is the thorny macrophage creature meant to represent? Or the roller-skating butterflies throwing four-winged boomerangs? You should just stop asking questions, because even if in one minute you're thinking how cheese-ball all this is, in the next moment you'll be slack-jawed with amazement at the remarkable Tang Xuezhi spinning in tight orbits inside a Cyr wheel or Tong Jia and Wang Qiaoling balanced delicately in a gut-crunching planche from aerial silks.

Xie Yuxi's fluid lighting design admirably integrates with Xu Zeng's wild costumes and the monumental, spacey video projections by Jin Xin and Zhao Yu, while the original score by Paul Chihara, former composer-in-residence for the San Francisco Ballet, runs between urgent Sturm und Drang and sweetly contemplative interludes. The music, which was recorded for the show, is also helpful in the transitions between scenes, which in the second act were occasionally less than smooth.

Circus skills are naturally the forte for the Dalian troupe, so the interpretive balletic sections are arguably the least compelling elements of the spectacle. Nevertheless, Li Huitong and Zhang Lei are polished in a sinuously icy duet, and the leggy Li Siyi is both elegant and expressive in a visually striking balancing act set behind a projection of green tendrils.

Perhaps what makes the whole thing so much fun is that whether contorting in pretzels or gyroscoping in hoops, the Dalian performers are delightfully warm and engaging. The evening culminates with Lu Mingyue foot-juggling eight umbrellas painted with pink magnolias and Wang Chengyu balanced deftly en pointe on top of Hui Yutao's head as the company floods onto stage around them. You hardly know where to look, but you won't want to look away.

Smuin Ballet at the Palace of Fine Arts: Chasing the high

Right in the middle of the show--it felt like almost exactly halfway-- a frisson ran up my spine and I thought, "There it is."

When I used to perform, I felt like I was always chasing the high I'd get from the perfect moment when everything hung together in just the right way. As a professional watcher of dance now, I chase the same  kind of high, but from the other side of the footlights. It seems just as elusive, transitory and difficult to quantify, and yet so thoroughly satisfying that I keep coming back for more.

Sometimes I think that the mental headspace I put myself in for the "job" of being a writer gets in my way of getting that fix. A ballet master I know says that he can't enjoy performances for their own sake anymore because he finds he can't turn off the part of his brain that is making mental notes for the dancers all the time. It's a little like that for me too. At the opening of Smuin Ballet's season at the Palace of Fine Arts last Friday, I was enjoying the show, but on a slightly detached, almost technical level. 

Smuin Ballet dancers Jonathan Dummar and Jane Rehm with the men of the company in Dear Miss Cline by Choreographer in Residence Amy Seiwert, performed as part of Smuin's XXtremes Fall Program playing October 4-12 at San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts. Photo credit: David DeSilva

Amy Seiwert's "Dear Miss Cline" is a warm, zippy cavalcade of vignettes to the music of Patsy Cline, that perfectly suits the company personality. It being the first night, many of the dancers looked a little serious, although Terez Dean was adorable and fresh foolin' around with Christian Squires, and Erin Yarbrough in her fitted pedal-pushers had exactly the right zany humor in her trio and duet. 

Christian Squires and Terez Dean in Dear Miss Cline. Photo: David DeSilva.

I love seeing a show with good production values, and that's one thing that Smuin Ballet has never skimped on. So, as I sit there, part of my head is taking note of the striking sets (Brian Jones) and the frothy costumes (Jo Ellen Arntz) and appreciating just how professionally everything has been put together. 

That continued right into the second piece of the night, Jiri Kylian's "Return to a Strange Land." I'd watched Arlette van Boven rehearsing it with the company and I was duly observing that certain details she had worked on were there. The company doesn't perform the ballet with the preternatural precision that I remember in Nederlands Dans Theatre, but there is instead a realness, a humanity and sensitivity to Smuin Ballet's approach that really appeals to me. It warms the sculptural quality of the choreography.

I like Terez Dean's restrained longing in the first trio, as she melts into the arms of Eduardo Permuy and Ben Needham-Wood. Later in the ballet, during Dean's duet with Permuy, there is an echo in Janaček's music of a theme in his "Sinfonietta," and Kylian likewise echoes the motif of wrapped arms that he scattered throughout his ballet of the same name. I wondered what he was trying to say with that motion, a kind of empty self-hug that feels lonely and internal, yet abandoned at the same time.

All of this, however, is happening on the conscious brain level. Look at that interesting movement, how nicely they execute that step, what clever lighting, and so on.

Until that moment. It was in the enigmatic melancholy duet for Jane Rehm and Joshua Reynolds, as he took her in a quick spiraling promenade in attitude. I can't explain why there was that frisson of something that just clicked exquisitely into place. And if I had glanced away for a second I wouldn't have seen it at all. Quite frankly, I'm not sure that that instant even struck anyone else in the audience the same way that it did me. But it was gorgeous, and for a moment, all the frontal lobe processing evaporated and the visceral took over. 

And then it was gone, but that didn't matter. Like the blue wash of light over the pas de deux, it had already colored the whole evening for me. 

Joshua Reynolds and Jane Rehm in Jirí Kylián’s Return to a Strange Land. Photo credit: Keith Sutter

Indigenous Peoples Day: Berkeley powwow

Indigenous Peoples Day: Berkeley powwow:

Though Indigenous Peoples Day usually falls on Oct. 12, Berkeley will celebrate the holiday a little early this year with the annual powwow and Indian market Saturday in the Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park.

This marks the 21st year for the gathering, which features not only a Native American arts and crafts fair, but also a kaleidoscope of drumming, singing and dance in intertribal exhibitions and contests.
A highlight of the morning will be the performances by about 20 dancers from the Northern California Pomo peoples.

Tribal members both young and old, outfitted in their vibrant beaded and feathered regalia, will share stories, dances and songs in the powwow circle, says Gino Barichello, the event's coordinator. He's been involved with the celebration since its inception in 1992, when Berkeley replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day.

Kids and grown-ups alike can watch the high-energy, colorful Aztec dancers, who will perform dances representing peoples of Central America as part of the exhibitions. Following the exhibitions, there'll be a ceremonial Gourd Dance, which Barichello says will honor veterans and warriors.

That'll be followed by intertribal dancing, Barichello says, "when all people are welcomed into the powwow arena to dance and participate."

In traditional powwow fashion, around noon the dancers will parade into the circular dance arena for an invocation and ceremony known as the "grand entry." During the dancing that follows, Barichello says, "the whole general community comes out to enjoy each other's company and dance together, whether in Native American or street clothing."

If you'd rather not take part, it's fine to sit outside the dance arena and just take it all in. Do remember though that it's polite to ask first if you want to take a photo of a particular dancer in regalia, and photos aren't allowed during some parts of the day's proceedings.

If you don't know much about powwows, don't worry: Every gathering has a master of ceremonies - Saturday that will be Tom Phillips, of the Kiowa and Creek - who not only keeps the day moving along, but also explains who is performing. And Barichello says, don't be shy.

"We have community members who attend powwows all year long, and spectators will often come up and ask about dances or styles. You can always come up to the speaker stand and get an answer."

Mini Martians Day: Science for tots not alien concept

Mini Martians Day: Science for tots not alien concept:

Even Marvin the Martian would be entertained by the activities planned for Sunday's Mini Martians Day at Oakland's Chabot Space & Science Center.

For a few hours, youngsters can explore the tactile weirdness of slimy Gak, punch some liquid-solid oobleck, taste "alien food" - dehydrated astronaut ice cream - and make alien masks, among other activities, says Liz Austerman, Chabot's visitor and community engagement manager.

"With Mini Martians Day, we really want to highlight some of the early-learner programs we have here," she says. "Many families may not realize that we have space here at the center called the Discovery Lab that's really designed for younger children. Our programs are really cognizant of early learners, and we aim to provide open experiences, like dramatic play with the miniature rocket that kids can play in."

The hands-on Discovery Lab is outfitted with fun stuff for preschoolers, including microscopes, wooden blocks, Lego gears and gadgets. And while you're at the center, the entire family can enjoy Chabot's exhibits, like the "Beyond Blastoff: Surviving in Space" show where you can check out real spacesuits and take a spin on astronaut exercise equipment.

Over at the "One Giant Leap: A Moon Odyssey" exhibit, visitors can squeeze into a Mercury capsule or try their hand at landing a lunar module. (Note that Mini Martians Day is free with museum admission.)

Besides the activities, and some story-telling time about friendly aliens, families can also catch the Chabot's new 30-minute planetarium show, "We Are Aliens," which will run throughout the day. Narrated by Rupert Grint of "Harry Potter" fame, the larger-than-life show explores the possibility of life beyond Earth in eye-popping 360-degree digital animations.

Also running Sunday will be planetarium shows including "Secret of the Cardboard Rocket," an adventure through the solar system, and "Tales of the Maya Skies," which introduces audiences to the history and ancient astronomy of the Mayan people.

"It's a day where we hope to make people aware of everything that we do," Austerman says, "that we will be beefing up our programs for early learners, but there are activities that are really interesting for all ages and great for the whole family."

Tricycle Music Fest: S.F. concert series adds chapter

Photo: Ed Ritger

Tricycle Music Fest: S.F. concert series adds chapter:

The largest "kindie-rock" festival on the West Coast gets under way this weekend, when the Tricycle Music Fest rolls into San Francisco and San Mateo libraries - yes, libraries - with concerts continuing throughout September and October.

The Tricycle Music Festival originated in 2007 as a popular annual concert series for families at the public library of Charlotte, N.C., says Christy Estrovitz, early literacy coordinator for the San Francisco Public Library.

"I had a colleague working there and when I happened to meet him for coffee, we talked about what projects he was most excited about, which turned out to be Tricycle Music Fest," she says.

She was so intrigued by the idea of a festival that linked lively music and songs with early literacy for kids, that she brought the idea home to San Francisco and in 2009 helped launch the first Tricycle Music Fest at the San Francisco Public Library.

Four years later, the festival has expanded to encompass a roster of nine performers, with free concerts in 28 libraries. For the first time, Estrovitz says, the San Francisco library is partnering with the San Mateo County Library to co-present the festival, which takes the half of the shows to branch libraries in San Francisco and the other half to San Mateo.

Engaging with music and song is a great way, Estrovitz says, to build key literacy skills, including vocabulary, listening skills, oral language and sound discrimination.

The lineup kicks off this weekend with the irrepressible and high-energy Seattle kindie-rock favorites the Not-Its. Future weekends will feature artists from across the nation, Brooklyn to Los Angeles, including 2013 Grammy winners the Okee Dokee Brothers, Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band (whose album "A Potluck" was named No. 1 cool kids album by People magazine) and a Beatles-inspired Bay Area trio, the Hipwaders.

"The nice thing is that the performers are so enjoying it that they've been pitching playing the Tricycle Music Fest to all their colleagues," Estrovitz says. "Now, when bands are touring through the Bay Area, they think about coming to the public library. Who knew the public library could be such a great venue for music?"

Indeed, if libraries are usually thought of as quiet places, Estrovitz says the Tricycle Music Fest will shift away from that image with what she calls a "fully engaged family rock show." Most of the concerts take place outside, or if weather does not permit that, in the children's room or community room. As an added bonus, organizers will raffle off a tricycle at each concert.

"We want to engage families with young children right at the library," Estrovitz says, "and help them rediscover their library as a family destination."

Strength and silliness in summer dance show

Photo: Matt Haber

Strength and silliness in summer dance show:

In dance, summer has traditionally been a time for choreographic experimentation. As with any experiment, there can be hits and misses - sometimes both in a single night, as was the case at Safehouse's sixth annual Summer Performance Festival, which started Wednesday night at the ODC Theater with Jenni Bregman & Dancers and BodiGram.

Of the three recent works that Bregman showed Wednesday, "Context," a meditation in four sections for nine dancers, made the strongest statement. The 2012 work found Bregman and her eight dancers, clad mostly in shorts with loose-fitting tops, with a chic Gina Levesque in a red suit engineering mysterious yet satisfying encounters in duets and groups to a throbbing original score created by Sunshine Jones.

For the most part, Bregman's choreography bends earthward in some arresting moments. Dancers whisked ramrod arms through the air with eyes cast pensively downward, and Marco Chavez Jr. hurtled compactly yet silkily across the floor. The lighting design went uncredited in the program, so it's hard to know whether the rather intriguing moire effect on a scrim behind Bregman's solo was intentional, but nonetheless, it lent a dizzying constant shift to her restive solo.

Following on the program was "Force," an earnest, yet not terribly revealing solo for Bregman, and "Home," a childlike adventure for six dancers, whose ideas were sketched out more succinctly in the drawings created on sheets of butcher paper than in the actual choreography or execution.

The Summer Performance Festival is curated by Joe Landini, director of the performance space the Garage, where many of the works on the festival's five-day program were forged. The SPF6 is the opportunity for these artists to transfer their efforts to a larger venue. Bregman's troupe is one of eight that perform through Sunday, including Aura Fischbeck Dance, Gretchen Garnett & Dancers, Angela Mazziotta, the Milissa Payne Project, Nine Shards, Vinnicombe/Winkler and BodiGram, who performed in the second slot of the doubleheader on Wednesday.

On re-entering the theater Wednesday night to be confronted with a simulacrum of a speakeasy-cum-dance hall scenario in which we were exhorted to have a drink and dance, I realized at once that we were meant to have "fun." The heart sank. To say that BodiGram's ill-conceived "D.R.U.N.K.S," choreographed by Blair Bodie and Julia Graham, was a frivolous miss would be a kindness.

What followed after 15 minutes of standing around was a performance that was as frustrating as it was sloppy - a juvenile, unfunny parade of lampoons depicting drunken debauchery. To say it devolved would be inaccurate, as this would imply there was some kind of high point involved.

Bodie, Graham, Tara Fagan and Korie Franciscus roll about onstage, do a bit of line dancing and pose fitfully while Shannon Preto dispenses drinks (yes, actual Tequila shots and Tecates) to the audience members, in what must have been a misguided impression that a shot of Tequila would help the silliness go down.

Landini reportedly considered some 120 entrants for the residencies at the Garage that led to slots in the festival. It's hard to believe that he couldn't find a work that would have been more deserving than "D.R.U.N.K.S" of the wider exposure that the Summer Performance Festival affords.

Learn how silica becomes glass at Hazel-Atlas Mine

Hazle-Atlas Mine, East Bay Regional Park District

Learn how silica becomes glass at Hazel-Atlas Mine:

Perhaps you've been sipping summer iced tea out of a mason jar, or patting the side of a ketchup bottle at a barbecue. You might not know that glassware was once made locally, and you can still see where silica was once mined near Antioch at the Hazel-Atlas Mine on guided tours at the Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve every Saturday and Sunday through November.

In an earlier era of mining, says Eddie Willis, a naturalist with the East Bay Regional Park District, the Black Diamond area represented the largest coal mining district in state of California. In the regional preserve at the foot of Mount Diablo are a dozen 19th century coal mines that have been sealed up for safety reasons and the five small ghost towns that once served the workers.

Abandoned at the turn of the 20th century, the area later opened to silica mining in the 1920s, when silica sandstone was sent to the Oakland factory of the Hazel-Atlas Glass Co. to make dishware and glass items. The Hazel-Atlas Co., which Willis says was once housed not far from the present-day Oakland Coliseum, would later purchase the mine and operate it until the end of World War II.

"The mine is set up to look like it did during 1930s operation," Willis says, explaining that the 90-minute guided tour starts with a slideshow and an overview of the park's history. After that, you put on hard hats and pick up flashlights for the trip into the shaft about 1,000 feet underground.

This Saturday at 10 a.m., a special naturalist-led program about silica mining, "Your Glass Starts Here," will trace the path of silica from the ground into modern manufactured products. (If you can't make it this weekend, the program takes place again Oct. 12.)

"For geology buffs, it's a great way to see geologic history. There are many different layers of earth that you can't see at surface, but which are visible in the mine," Willis says. "We also pass through a fault, a cut through the mine where earth has shifted, and along the way there are fossil imprints of ancient sea life.

"We try to tell the story of what took place here and why people came here to mine, as well as how the mines were used," he says.

Before or after the mine tour, there is plenty to see throughout the Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve, including the remnants of a ghost town, an old cemetery with headstones for 19th century townspeople, and some 60 miles of hiking trails, both moderate and challenging. (Read more about the preserve at http://bit.ly/14t1g1v.)

Willis suggests that you wear closed-toed shoes if you go on the mine tour, and because the mine remains 58 degrees Fahrenheit regardless of the outside temperature, it's a good idea to dress in layers and bring a sweater or light jacket.

Next act for Dennis Nahat, after Ballet San Jose

Photo: John Gerbetz

Next act for Dennis Nahat, after Ballet San Jose:

Dennis Nahat is never one to sit still. The former artistic director of Ballet San Jose - his successor, Jose Manuel Carreño, was just announced by the company last month - Nahat says mediation with the company he guided for 40 years has yet to come to a conclusion since his unceremonious removal a year and a half ago. But for Nahat, looking forward is more important.

Nahat, himself a former star with American Ballet Theatre in the 1970s, is busy directing his new school and production company in San Jose, Theatre Ventures International.

And much of the last year he spent collaborating with the Dalian Acrobatic Troupe and the United Star Performing Arts Corp. in China to develop a spectacular production titled "Yulan" - don't think "ballet," but rather Cirque du Soleil - which debuted on the Hong Ji Grand Stage in Dalian in November. This fall, thanks to San Jose's sister city program, "Yulan" comes to San Jose, followed in December by his second venture, "The Terracotta Prince."

Q: What do you think about the changes in leadership at Ballet San Jose?

A: I was rather intrigued that they announced an artistic director, when I was told at the time they removed me that there was not going to be an artistic director. Look, I understand how things go and how they change. If they're going to bring someone in like that and everyone likes him, then that's the way it happens.

Q: Tell me about Theatre Ventures International.

A: When I left the ballet, the City Council said to me, if you're going to open up a school, please don't go anywhere else, stay in San Jose. ... I didn't want to create more trouble, so when we had the opportunity, we opened our new facility in San Jose but in District 1, not downtown. We are now a nonprofit school and production company.

Q: How did "Yulan" come about?

A: The Dalian Acrobatic Troupe talked to me about creating a new show for them. When we started discussing what to do, I said, well, let's not do a war story - everyone running around with a sword or a fist in the air, because that's what everyone expects from China. Let's use the artists for what they can do and we will find a topic that any audience can respond to, not just Chinese audiences who know the myths already. So I talked to the teachers about what they liked most about working with the students. One of them said, "I see them when they are very young and I love to see how they grow up, like flowers." So I asked them what the most famous and beautiful flower in China was, and they said the yulan.

Q: With "Yulan," you choreographed and directed?

A: Yes, both, and came up with the concepts. I worked with two other choreographers and with designers for the lighting, the visuals, there are five projectors running video continuously throughout the show. All of this we created in Shanghai with a team, but based on my concepts. I worked through interpreters, of course, because I didn't speak the language, but I gave the lighting and scenic designers photos of examples of what I wanted. And the music, which I commissioned from Hollywood composer Paul Chihara, who worked on Michael Smuin's "Tempest," is being mastered for a commercial CD release as we speak.

Q: What's the story of "Yulan"?

A: The yulan is the magnolia, the most famous flower in China. How long does it take to create something that beautiful and that desirable? It takes millions and millions of years to get to that point of beauty, so don't destroy it.

Q: What other plans do you have beyond "Yulan" and "The Terracotta Prince"?

A: When other people came to see the premiere in Dalian, they said, "You have to come do something for us - come to Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin." So, I'll be returning to China to talk about that with them. A new theater in Hangzhou contacted me and would like to have "Yulan" there permanently as an attraction to launch in the fall. Of course, that would be at the same time "Yulan" would be here in the fall, so we would have to build a second production right away, hire new artists and train them, but anything is possible in China - whatever you can think of can be done.

Niles Canyon Railway: Trip takes you back 150 years

1927 Robert Dollar steam locomotive on the Farwell Bridge
Photo courtesy of the Pacific Lcomotive Association.

Whether or not you have a train aficionado in the family, a great summer excursion is the Niles Canyon Railway, a piece of American history that chugs through Alameda County from Fremont to Sunol and back on the first and third weekends of each month.

Passengers board beautifully renovated coaches pulled by mostly early-to-mid-20th century steam or diesel locomotives for the round trip along a 7-mile route through a canyon largely untouched in the past 150 years. You can start out from the Niles Station in Fremont or from the restored 1884 Sunol Depot, but either way, passengers have the option to stay on the train or get off and stroll around, then catch a later train back.

Read more at Niles Canyon Railway: Trip takes you back 150 years - San Francisco Chronicle.

Estonian National Ballet review: Polished

Estonian National Ballet review: Polished:

Eve Andre in "Time." 

Photo: Harri Roospuu

The U.S. debut of the Estonian National Ballet on Friday night at the Palace of Fine Arts was the highlight of the gala that opened Lep-Esto 2013, a four-day celebration of Estonian culture in San Francisco.

Now directed by Toomas Edur, the 87-year-old troupe offered two works that showed off a select coterie of sleek, polished performers.

Tiit Helimets, the Estonian-born San Francisco Ballet principal who danced with the Estonian National Ballet until 1999, was instrumental in bringing his compatriots to San Francisco. He was also the choreographer for a piece commissioned for the festival, "Time," set to a recorded score by Paula Matthusen. Helimets is a superlative partner, so it was unsurprising that much of his contemporary ballet played out in sharp shifts of weight and suspended shapes produced by unusual partnering.

Though "Time" felt spatially constrained - I longed to see these gorgeous, athletic dancers cut broad pathways through space - the sculptural qualities that Helimets evoked were intriguing, though too often marred by the strobe of flash photographs from the audience.

Nanae Maruyama, Eve Andre and Jonathan Hanks hurtled through a compact, muscular trio, while Nadezda Antipenko unfurled spectacular lines partnered by the four men in the final section of the piece. Most engrossing though was a meditative central pas de deux for Anatoli Arhangelski and Svetlana Danilova.

Helimets himself also took the stage in the White Swan pas de deux from "Swan Lake," attending to guest artist Alexsandra Meijer, on loan from Ballet San Jose, with princely gallantry.

The evening got off to a sonorous start with the appearance of the Estonian Youth Wind Orchestra, who played a heartfelt rendition of the Estonian anthem "Mu isamaa, mu õnn ja rõõm" as the audience joined in, harking back to the Singing Revolution of the '80s and early '90s. Estonian singer Hanna-Liina Võsa offered six songs composed by fellow countrymen. Her accompanist, pianist Hando Nahkur, also gave an emotive, improvisatory version of Schumann's Arabesque No. 18 on an instrument that didn't do justice to his playing.

It was a shame that Marina Kesler's affecting "Othello" got left to the end of a long program, because it was an engaging, if perhaps a bit overlong, piece. Kesler's version of Shakespeare distilled the tragedy to an essence of love, jealousy and betrayal for five couples, arranged to recordings of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt that were by turns stentorian and intimate.

Kesler's choreography veers from formalistic to jazzy with sometimes puzzling, even cartoonish results, but at its best, "Othello" was surprisingly absorbing in its mix of austerity and sensuality. A mesmerizing interlude for four women set to "Spiegel im spiegel" was reminiscent of the choreographic architecture of Hans van Manen.

As Desdemona, the diminutive, steely Andre brought sweetness to her pas de deux with Arhangelski, whose Othello was resolute and earthy if not particularly uxorious. Sergei Upkin nearly stole the whole thing with his gleefully swaggering Iago, capping an auspicious debut for this elegant Baltic company.

El Wah Movement performs at Ethnic Dance Festival

Photo: RJ Muna

El Wah Movement performs at Ethnic Dance Festival:

In Haiti, the mystical Rada spirits protect and provoke justice, counter dishonesty and inspire vitality and energy. It is these lwas, or spirits, that El Wah Movement Dance Theatre invokes in its dance, "Rele Tout Bon Moun Yo (Call All the Good People)," performed this weekend by the troupe - one of 10 dance groups that take the stage during the final week of the Ethnic Dance Festival at the Lam Research Theater at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

The news from Haiti is so frequently grim - earthquakes, political unrest, epidemics - that oftentimes the beauty of the island is forgotten. A score of dancers and musicians, including Haitian dance icon Blanche Brown, bring to life the color, ritual and pulse-pounding drumming in an adapted version of a traditional Haitian prayer.

Colette Eloi, a Haitian native who directs the 8-year-old company, choreographed "Rele Tout Bon Moun Yo," and also sings during the performance, dedicated the piece to the people of the world who came to Haiti's aid after the earthquake of 2010, which devastated the island nation, and from which the country is still recovering.

On Saturday night before the performance, Eloi and Brown will be joined by Deborah Vaughan and Latanya D. Tigner of Dimensions Dance Theater, who also perform at the festival this weekend, on a special panel moderated by Ethnic Dance Festival co-director CK Ladzekpo that will discuss the history and future of dance from the African diaspora.

Micaya's annual show, 'Mission in the Mix'

Stavroula Arabatgis of SoulForce Dance. Photo: Blake Tucker

Micaya's annual show, 'Mission in the Mix':

For decades, the irrepressible Micaya has championed hip-hop, and this weekend her annual "Mission in the Mix" show at Dance Mission Theater brings a diversity of Bay Area dance to the stage.

In addition to four new pieces for her own SoulForce Dance Company, which appears every night, "Mission in the Mix" will also play host to a dozen other local dance and music performers, including Ava Apple's salsa dancers Latin Symbolics, the Eight-Count hip-hop dance ministry team from Great Exchange Covenant Church in Sunnyvale, and Platinum, an all-women troupe from the NewStyle Motherlode studios.

"Platinum is a group of older women, moms of kids studying hip-hop who saw what they were doing and said, 'I want to do that,' " says Micaya. "So they put their own company together, and they are just so fierce."

Highlighting the local dance community, as well as showcasing her own dancers, says Micaya, is what drives her program. SoulForce Dance Company will dance side-by-side with dancers from Micaya's student workshops, whose members range in age from 13 to 74 years old.

"I love Mission in the Mix," says Micaya, "As much as I love the hip-hop festival, this is really my heart and soul. It's about my own DNA and creativity and playing my own dancers, doing what inspires me and nurturing students and the community. I feed off of that, I love it."

Levydance at 10 - joyful risky business

Photo: Brant Ward

Levydance at 10 - joyful risky business:

The audience caught its breath, because it surely looked like the handsome young man would dive face first off the end of the stage and onto the pavement below. But as dancer Paul Vickers charged headlong for the edge, Scott Marlowe reached him barely in time to pull him back from the brink with exquisitely choreographed certainty.

Risk and reward. That's what sets Levydance, which celebrates the culmination of its 10th season with performances in SoMa this weekend, apart from the garden-variety dance company. And according to company founder and choreographer Benjamin Levy, it's also what keeps dance making interesting for him.

"Levydance is constantly reinventing itself, asking why we exist," Levy said. "Why do I make art in a theater, put lights on it and ask people to show up? Why do we do things the way we do and can we shake them up? I think it's time creatively and businesswise for innovation in the world of dance, and I'm really excited to see what happens if we risk creating new models."

A California native, Levy came to dance as a teenager, but really fell in love with the art as an undergrad at UC Berkeley, where Levydance got its start in 2002 as a group of friends - Lily Dwyer, Cambria Garell, Christopher Hojin Lee and Pearl Wang - who, as he puts it, "wanted to make art together."

Though the dancers from that first core company have moved on, Levydance's current four-member roster, which includes Marlowe - also the company's artistic associate - Yu Kondo Reigen, Vickers, and Sarah Dionne Woods, is no less passionate about the collaborative creative process Levy has developed over the years.

The atmosphere at Thursday night's open-air performance, on an uncharacteristically clement San Francisco evening, was typically both relaxed and meticulously calculated - part family fiesta with guests sipping wine and happily munching on tacos and part retrospective. Levy has said that he and his four-dancer company plan interactions with their enthusiastic following by remembering that the every audience member is a welcome guest. It is perhaps why their best performances feel like a homecoming.

The first word that comes to mind when envisioning the company's body of work is "rambunctious." Perhaps the next word would be "smart." I first encountered Levydance at the Summerfest dance festival in 2004, where they performed "Holding Pattern," one of four revivals on this program.

At the time, although not flawless in execution, it was both unusual and fascinating. Energy blended easily with polish in imaginative cascades. On Thursday night, that bold movement was no less effective and eye-catching than nine years ago.

If anything, Reigen, Vickers and Woods gave the sinuous transitions, the tumbling of one dancer over another only to freeze suspended in the air, a sharper, meatier subtext, taming wild energy with disciplined execution.

Indeed, a signature of Levy's work is its rational exuberance and vigor. For the performances on Heron Street, where the company has its home studio, catwalks interconnect a larger stage with two smaller platforms, girdling a small mosh pit of viewers and lending potential velocity to the dancing.

Levy's aim is to bring the dance as close to the audience as possible without scaring anyone and certainly his performers are more intimate with the audience now than ever. In those early days, the small group of dancers was excellent, yet remote.

By contrast, Marlowe's turn in the 2005 solo "if this small space" was fearlessly accessible and vulnerable in its proximity to the viewer. That willingness to take risks whether physical or emotional, whether it's a big vision for the company's future or diving off the end of a stage, is what defines Levydance.

"I'm not interested in making dance just to make dance - in making pretty things and having people clap at them. Really it's about this," Levy says, waving a hand between the two of us.

"For me, the audience is an integral part of fulfilling the creative act. And it can be a negative experience - it's not like you have to love my work and get what my mission is. We just need to acknowledge that you're watching and that your watching gives us an energy that changes the way we dance."

Like many choreographers, Levy is driven by the desire to innovate and to expand into a community organization, but truth be told, it's not that what he does has never been seen before. The company plans a collaboration later this year with the Exploratorium, a performance installation called "Comfort Zone," and last year Levydance launched an AMP residency series hosting New York choreographer Sidra Bell.

Though the program was meant to shake up the artistic process, it was more a nod to the new realities of cross-presenting, than groundbreaking artistically.

Still, you can't blame a guy for trying, especially when his approach is thoughtful, yet bold and undeterred by fear of failure.

Amara Tabor-Smith: SF a backdrop to tribute

Ed Mock with Cecilia Marta, Amara Tabor-Smith and Pearl Ubungen.Photo by Bonnie Kamin

Amara Tabor-Smith: SF a backdrop to tribute:

How do you call up the ghost of a larger-than-life dance artist whose work inspired a generation? Choreographer Amara Tabor-Smith conducts a moving seance in "He Moved Swiftly But Gently Down the Not Too Crowded Street: Ed Mock and Other True Tales in a City That Once Was...," Saturday and next weekend in locations from Civic Center to the Mission District.

Presented by Dancers Group's Onsite series, which supports free large-scale, site-specific performances, the five-hour long show (you can join for as little or as much as you want - complete schedule and locations are at www.dancersgroup.org) takes the audience from 32 Page St., where the choreographer and teacher Ed Mock once had a studio, to the Valencia Street site of his favorite barbecue joint, to the ODC Theater. It's a bold undertaking that Tabor-Smith hopes will capture the spirit of the man.

"He was a magical person, a big spirit, and at the same time really approachable," says Tabor-Smith, who danced with his company, Ed Mock Dancers. "He didn't call himself a political choreographer, but he was part of that movement of dance in the '70s and '80s that was about truth-telling, experimentation and being bold - about the excitement that comes from risking failure and enjoying that."

"We are conjuring the spirit of Ed," she says with a smile, "and in the spirit of Ed, anything could happen."

Push Dance Company: 'Unlock'

Photo: Smeeta Manhati

Push Dance Company: 'Unlock':

Love isn't like a grindstone that does the same thing to everything it touches, declares Janie Crawford in Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God"; love is like the sea - a moving thing that takes its shape from the shore it meets, and that's different with every shore.

The resonance that choreographer Raissa Simpson found in Hurston's classic 1937 novel inspired her latest work, "Unlock," which the 8-year-old Push Dance Company premieres at the Zaccho SF dance space this weekend, on a program that showcases 10 years of Simpson's work.

"I first read this novel on a hot summer day in New York, and I couldn't let go of it," says Simpson. "I could never forget the story of this woman who was searching for her authentic self through other people and through love in the hope that she would be happy, but finally at end of the book, she was alone."

"Unlock" finds Simpson collaborating with set designer Benito Steen and composer and cellist Unwoman (Erica Mulkey). In an effort to make Hurston's story more current, she has set her version in Bayview-Hunters Point.

"I wanted to explore love in this community," she says. "For me, this book was the first time I had read a story where African Americans were in love. Usually you read stories about African Americans struggling and in poverty, and all those things are true, but this book seemed like a guide to love.

"I work with the Third Street Youth Center and Clinic with children that are at risk, and there's something about working with teenagers and seeing them in love that made me think of this book again."

Like Hurston's protagonist, Janie, Simpson is of mixed ethnic background. Her mother is Filipina, while her African American father was born in Cleveland. As a child, she remembers encountering racism in Texas before the family finally settled in San Jose, and the migratory threads of Janie's life as she attempted to unlock the secret to finding herself also rang true to Simpson.

"As a child, going from an all-African American neighborhood to white suburban neighborhood in the South was difficult," she says. "I have memories of a friend's mom who made her tell me I couldn't play with her anymore. Those experiences as a child are part of the social structures that I look at now as an artist. My work has a lot of social commentary because I find that my life is a social commentary."

Choreographer inspired by '31 film 'M'

Photo: Ryan Borque

Choreographer inspired by '31 film 'M':

It might not be readily apparent, but there's classic film noir inspiration behind the dance in choreographer Christy Funsch's latest solo piece, "Moving Still(s)," which has its San Francisco premiere this weekend at CounterPulse on a program of works new and old by both Funsch and Portland choreographer Katherine Longstreth.

"Moving Still(s)" grew out of a month's work that Funsch did last year in the Djerassi Resident Artists program in Woodside, taking as a departure point Fritz Lang's 1931 German film "M," a classic thriller that tells of a serial killer who kidnaps and murders young children. Funsch, however, was less intrigued by the lurid details of the film than in the director's craft and the characters.

"I was drawn to a lot of the decisions Lang made as a filmmaker," she says, "the use of space, the camera angles, the duration of the shots, all are part of his storytelling technique. Even the shots without characters really contribute to sense of story, so you'll see an empty courtyard with clothes drifting away, a ball, a balloon without owners."

For this solo piece, which she premiered last April in New York, Funsch chose 15 characters from "M," as well as some from Jean Pierre-Melville's 1962 New Wave noir crime flick "Le Doulos," and distilled gestures specific to each.

"It's not a reinterpretation of film, but an experiment for me, a way of finding dynamic shifts, muscular tension, new ways of embodying gestures," she says. "The solo is not narrative, but it's not abstract glimpses of characters, either. You'll see that one is a child, another a woman, a lawyer, a policeman. So it's a moving pastiche of people, characters that emerge out of theatrical gesture."

More recently, Funsch's work has focused largely on solos - a retrospective at Z Space last year let audience members experience some of the many single-dancer pieces intimately and individually, one on one in private spaces, as well as in a traditional setting. Now she says, she's interested in getting back to group work. This weekend's program also will feature the premiere of a trio, "She's Near She's Now She's Nowhere," a collaboration with Tamara Albaitis, who created a sound installation of tiny speaker cones suspended on wires throughout the space.

"For a time I really looked at how the solo figure could be empowered," she says. "Now it's about looking at things as a whole - how we navigate the world and find meaning for ourselves as individuals in a collection. You can go away for a residency by yourself, but when you come back, you're part of something larger."

Felipe Diaz, San Francisco Ballet master

Photo: Erik Tomasson

Felipe Diaz, San Francisco Ballet master:

It's been 15 years since Felipe Diaz soared across the War Memorial Opera House stage with San Francisco Ballet. After training for a couple of years at the San Francisco Ballet School, the Colombian-born dancer joined the company in 1988, rising to the rank of soloist in his 10 years with the Ballet. In 1998, he and then-partner-now-wife Marisa Lopez left to join the Dutch National Ballet, where they enjoyed vibrant careers before retiring, he in 2011 and she in 2012. Now, at 39, Diaz has returned to San Francisco Ballet as a ballet master, wielding the experience of his 22 years onstage to guide a new generation of dancers.

Q: What drew you and Marisa Lopez to Amsterdam?

A: I think it wasn't necessarily Amsterdam, I just wanted to come to Europe. I had a curiosity about their repertoire and what it was like to live in Europe. Marisa and I wanted to be together - we've been together 17 years, this summer we will be married 10 years.

Q: What were some of the differences between dancing in Europe versus with an American company?

A: In most European companies they have their own theater, so the company performs all year round. The schedule is shared between the ballet and opera, so you prepare for a program and then it goes onstage immediately and is performed maybe 16 or 17 times. Here, the schedule is more condensed, and while there is in theory more time to prepare, one could argue that it's better for the body to perform all year round rather than suddenly shock the body and perform intensively from January to May. On the other hand, at SFB there is definitely no room for complacency or to relax. You have to be ready to work, and it can be very exciting for the dancer, because you work on many different ballets at the same time instead of doing only one production over and over.

Q: When you retired, did you already know what you wanted to do next?

A: My parents are dancers and teachers and they have a school, so from an early age I understood what it was like to teach. While I was still dancing, in Amsterdam, on my free days, I would get together with other dancers and organize a class. It started out as me by myself, but little by little, friends would join me and that grew until the director noticed. In the last four years of my career, he asked me to teach company class, and at the school in Amsterdam and at Royal Conservatory in The Hague. So, when I retired, the director said that he had a full-time position as a ballet master for me. I retired on Dec. 24, 2011, and on Dec. 26, I was a ballet master.

Q: How did you end up coming back to San Francisco?

A: I was invited to teach the school's summer program a few times, and to teach for the company as well. San Francisco Ballet is a place I hold dearly in my heart. The city and organization gave me so much early in my career, and Helgi (artistic director Tomasson) taught me so many things - how to be a professional dancer, how to go about it and what it's like. So the prospect of working with him again was very appealing.

Q: What do you love to do outside of the ballet studio?

A: What I really love is to take my son, Gabriel, to the park. When my wife was pregnant, I envisioned myself and my son going to get ice cream, and now he's finally old enough to do that, so I can enjoy spending time with him.

Q: What are you doing now that the ballet season has ended?

A: I am in Amsterdam as guest teacher for the Dutch National, then I go to Tokyo to teach. It's a busy summer and I'm not really resting, but I think it's good to travel and be exposed to other places in the dance world, so you can always keep your thoughts and ideas current and keep on learning - never stop learning.