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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

Koret Museum Day: Free admission at 17 sites: "

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.