Smuin Ballet: Been Through Diamonds, Carmen

There's a different look to the Smuin Ballet company these days. Not to say better or worse, just different. New faces and a new energy along with new repertoire was what I took away form the company's season opener at the Palace of Fine Arts.

It's been a year and a half since the company's highly visible and high-energy founder passed, and time has wrought some changes. Celia Fushille-Burke has assumed the mantle of company director, while dancer Amy Seiwert is now a choreographer-in-residence. Added to the roster this year are dancers Darren Anderson, Ryan Camou, Terez Dean, Ted Keener, Brooke Reynolds, Jean Michelle Sayeg and Shane Messac.

Friday's program opened with a premiere of Seiwert's Been Through Diamonds, a larky neo-classical look at relationships between four couples that found the men clad in loose suit jackets and pants and the women in Mario Alonzo's sexy dresses. With its dark smokiness and mysterious interplay between the sexes, Diamonds has a bit of the look of a much earlier work that Seiwert did for Oakland Ballet in 2003, Monopoly. Whereas Been Through Diamonds is set to Mozart, the music for Monopoly was Gorecki, but in both Seiwert stepped away from movement as abstraction and given her steps a more human backstory and emotional context.

When I saw Monopoly-- which also featured a rock-solid Erin Yarbrough-Stewart, who stood out in Diamonds too-- I recall thinking that something about Seiwert's trademark twisting and fluid style didn't quite jibe with the story at hand and likewise, it's not clear to me that she had found a comfortable way to get her emotional points across while still utilizing the distinctive connectors and thrusts of weight that mark her work.

Still, as more of a meditation, Diamonds made an impression, particularly in the confident way that Seiwert layers complex steps and transitions from one scene to the next. Newcomer Camou made an appealing soloist, as did his partner Susan Roemer.

The other new work on the program was Robert Sund's Carmen, a one act distillation of the famous story of love gone wrong, this time set to tracks from Miles Davis and Gil Evans' Sketches of Spain. Although it seems like the perfect sort of vehicle for a company known for larger-than-life stories, this Carmen came across as less dramatic than angst-ridden.

Aaron Thayer, as the ill-fated Don Jose and Jessica Touchet as his titular lover did their best with the choreography, which offered serviceable, though not always inspired moments. Touchet-- a dancer who sports a bright charm to go with her dead-centered turns--engaged in much teasing and flicking of her shawl and one rather absurdly tame catfight with Yarbrough. She worked hard to serve up sizzle, but it wasn't her fault that ultimately at the moment of highest emotion, she was little more than kicked around.

Also on the program was Michael Smuin's cleverly nostalgic portmanteau ballet Dances with Songs.

Program Notes.

SF Jazz: Max Raabe & the Palast Orchester

In the early morning hours, I lie awake and listen to NPR and allow random items from Morning Edition to seep into my head. What I remember can be odd-- occasionally a news item crosses over into my dreams -- was I really arguing with Sarah Palin about her lipstick?

The other day all I could remember was the sound of one of the little thirty second musical transitions, and when I finally got up and looked on the NPR site to find out what it was, I ran across the name of Max Raabe. One link led to another and I found myself utterly charmed by his lounge-lizard approach to the dance music of the 20s and 30s. Then I found out he was coming to the Paramount Theatre in Oakland, courtesy of SF Jazz.

Apparently Raabe and his orchestra, coming off of a highly successful run at Carnegie Hall, have wider fan base than I knew, because the gorgeous Art Deco Paramount was filled to the rafter with ardent fans.

The Palaster's appeal is in the utterly tight, thoroughly serious approach to comedy. The band looks immaculate and plays even better, evincing the sound of a bygone era of Weimar, Germany that occasionally makes someone like me -- who grew up steeped in 1930s Hollywood stereotypes --wonder if someplace in an alley jack-booted thugs are kicking a victim to death.

Raabe himself is a dry and witty front man, a study in leisured boredom as he croons through delightful tunes such as "My Gorilla has a Villa in a Zoo," as well as Brechtian favorites from "Mahagonny" and "Three Penny Opera."

By the time he got round to the band's perennial favorite encore number, an austerely rendered cover of Britney Spears' "Oops I Did It Again," they had the crowd in the palm of their hands... and wondering when they'll be back again.

Program Notes.

Target Family Day at downtown museums

Explore four of the city's liveliest museums - the Contemporary Jewish Museum, the Museum of the African Diaspora, Zeum and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art - as they and the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival offer activities, performances and free admission as part of Target's Family Day on Sunday.

On the Esplanade Stage, the Unique Derique and the Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company will be among the many performers, and at Zeum, kids will be able to ride the carousel for free all day long. A huge communal sidewalk mural is planned for the Museum of the African Diaspora, and over at the new Contemporary Jewish Museum, activities will celebrate the Jewish festival of Sukkot.

SFMOMA's Family Day earlier in the year brought in 2,400 visitors, but Sunday's mix of films, hands-on activities and events, inspired by the museum's eye-catching "Brought to Light: Photography and the Invisible, 1840-1900" exhibition, promises to attract even more.

Read more at the SF Chronicle website.