Riding the Wave

WestWave Dance Festival
Cowell Theater, San Francisco
July 12, 2009

By the time we got to the Cowell Theater, full of anticipation for the 2009 WestWave Dance Festival, the line stretched far into the parking lot of the Fort Mason Center making the distance between us and the seats of the Cowell Theater feel like they were miles away. Patiently determined theatergoers, however, looked undaunted by the 20 minute wait (at five minutes to curtain) and box office mixups and by the time the show finally got underway half an hour late, the mood was unaccountably good-humored despite the obstacles.

(photo of Amy Seiwert by Andy Mogg)

In the long foggy San Francisco summers, WestWave Dance Festival's concentrated showing of local choreographers has long been an indispensable annual event for Bay Area dance aficionados. So it was happy news that despite tight financial times, producer Joan Lazarus was forging ahead with the festival this year, albeit in a shortened version -- one night only and with a limited number of companies participating.

Some of the work has been seen before, but worth a second--or third-- viewing. Katie Faulkner's seductive film "Loom" which traces the threads of a relationship played out between Faulkner and Private Freeman made an appropriately moody lead-in to "Until We Know for Sure," which the same two dancers performed live to snippets of music drawn from Maria Silva and Alfredo Duarte, among others. Floating in patches of light, Faulkner and Freeman melded one movement into the next with an ease and fluidity that still managed to surprise the eye with its impulsiveness. It doesn't hurt that the both of them have technical strength to burn--Faulkner's stability in a deep plie on half-pointe was mesmerizing, and Freeman's steady and attentive partnering was the linchpin on which the entire encounter turned.

Linchpins also leapt to mind while watching Amy Seiwert's latest "Response to Change" in which the choreography turns on split-second catches and fiendishly speedy interlocking of limbs. Dressed in purple tunics and t-shirts, Im'ij-re's four couples (Robin Cornwell, Vanessa Thiessen, Sharon Wehner, Kathi Martuza, Kevin Delany, Koichi Kubo, Matthew Linzer and John Speed Orr) work with seemed --given the score by Mason Bates entitled "The Life of Birds"--a fitful birdlike theme, although the demands of secure pointework seemed to make some of the women slightly cautious at first, though their confidence seemed to blossom as the piece developed, and one could only appreciate Thiessen's bullet-like pluck-- a pleasant counterpoint to Martuza's matter-of-factly, almost slyly, delivered supple extensions.

Also on the program was the premiere of Manuelito Biag's "Terra Incognita," a fractal of a dance that moved through solos, duets and trios for Biag, Kara Davis and Alex Ketley accompanied by song fragments composed and sung by Faulkner on guitar. On first view, "Terra Incognita" looks disjointed, dancers sussing out admittedly beautiful phrases of movement in a set dominated by bare lights and chairs. Davis and Ketley play out a tender pas de deux, Biag dances a solo with weighty moves that recall tai-chi, Davis flies about the space in an impassioned solo like a wild woman-- but still, this looks a bit like a dance being workshopped and still in progress. Nevertheless, as phrases of movement and music repeat and reassemble in ever-growing patterns a certain kind of organic order emerges. Even if the whole never seems to really cohere into a complete statement, it was worthwhile, both for the concept and the execution.

"Terra incognita" could well have described "*FLASH REAL* a Song Dance Cycle" Kim Epifano's mystifying and oddly frustrating journey through two years' worth of work which opened the evening. Accompanied live by composer and didgeridoo player Stephen Kent -- who also created the sound bed for this first of a multi-part work-- Epifano sang, swooshed and flew about the stage, drawing props and clothing Mary Poppins-like out of a capacious suitcase and seemingly menaced by a dangling crystal chandelier that loomed over the whole procedure like the sword of Damocles. I'm a bit of a skeptic at heart and any piece with a lot of running in circles tends to make my eyes narrow, but "*FLASH REAL*" was simply perplexing. Even though I had some awareness of Epifano's journeys to China, Tibet and Ethiopia, and followed her recent work, I couldn't fathom at all where she was taking us, although the collaboration with Kent looks like an avenue worth exploring.

Whether "Wake", the title of LEVYdance's offering on the WestWave program, refers to awakening, or to a funeral is unclear, although this lengthy duet for Brooke Gessay and Scott Marlowe felt as though it tended far more toward the sepulchral. As esoteric as I found "Wake," though, it's maybe a little unfair to try to re-evaluate this 2008 work based on this performance. Solemnly slow motion hip swivels and shoulder rolls were jarred out of focus by an obviously distracted and bored toddler who ran about the aisles and was finally removed shrieking from the auditorium. While I couldn't condone the impulse that led her parents to take her to what was obviously an adult event that was just too long for her, I also couldn't help but sympathize with her.

The evening closed on a similarly dark note with Patrick Makuakane's "From the last to the first," performed by the hula troupe Na Lei Hulu i Ka Wekiu. Beginning with a wailing lamentation and moving through somber ground through traditional dances to broadly curvacious choreography set to Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," this was hula seen in a serious mold. Unfortunately, although the power of the group and the sway of the mass of dancers onstage, in another context, might have been alluring and provocative, I was hoping not to leave the theater so depressed.

96 Hours Family: Grind for the Green's Eco-music conference

With President Obama pushing to create millions of new "green-collar" jobs, being eco-conscious might not just be a good idea, it may become a lucrative one as well. But buying organic, starting your own garden and living the sustainable life can be expensive, and for many people, it might feel as though the green movement is a nice but unavailable crusade that has all but passed them by.

"While certain parts of the Bay Area are very eco-conscious, for people in some parts of the city, like Bayview-Hunters Point, they just don't have access to some of the resources, the technology or information that would allow them to live in an ecologically conscious, self-sustaining way," says Ambessa Cantave, who with wife Zakiya Harris founded Grind for the Green in 2007, an organization dedicated to bringing ideas on how young people can shape a green future for themselves and practical resources for sustainable living to underserved communities.

Read more in the SF Chronicle site.

Queer Tango throws out the leader follower rules

"Where the man leads the lady must follow," wails one of the women in the cult classic "Strictly Ballroom."

And indeed it might appear that the social dance milieu - where the gender roles of a male leader and a female follower are seemingly built into the structure of the dance - is at odds with modern life in which gender roles are less confined. But in the world of Argentine tango, a growing community of dancers is looking to break the strictures of traditional gender roles.

Queer tango - which has become popular with festivals in Hamburg, Berlin, Stockholm and, of course, Buenos Aires - is not just for gay and lesbian dancers, but rather a more all-encompassing term for tango that embraces ambiguity in the leader-follower system. This not only allows dancers to take on nontraditional roles, but also gives them license to switch roles back and forth while dancing. San Francisco plays host to a regular milonga, or tango party, called QueerTango Cafe, on the second Sunday of each month, and now organizers Amy Little, Winter Held and Auriel are co-producing the first International QueerTango Festival to be held in the United States beginning Wednesday and running through the weekend.

Read more at the SF Chronicle site.

96 Hours Family: Reflections at the Exploratorium

Kids tend to rush around the Exploratorium, but the young boy whizzing around me stops short with an impressed "Whoa!" He stares at the life-size upside-down image of himself that has appeared in front of a giant spherical mirror and experimentally waves his hand at himself, mesmerized by how real his doppelganger appears.

Once used by NASA for a flight simulator, the enormous mirror comes to the Exploratorium via the Chabot Space and Science Center, and it greets - and entrances - visitors to the museum's latest exhibition, "Reflections."

Read more at the SF Chronicle site.

Review: Sylvia at American Ballet Theatre

Michele Wiles and Roberto Bolle in Sylvia. Photo: MIRA.

Sylvia at American Ballet Theatre, Metropolitan Opera House, July 1, 2009

Sylvia: Michelle Wiles, Aminta: Roberto Bolle, Eros: Daniil Simkin,

Orion: Cory Stearns, Diana: Kristi Boone
Conductor: David LaMarche

Gods and goddesses are at play in American Ballet Theatre's lavishly appointed production of Frederick Ashton's Sylvia, and to judge from the reception given the ballet by the audience at its Metropolitan Opera House run last week, this lovely work with its charming score by Leo Delibes is still much beloved, even after falling out of the active repertoire for decades until the Royal Ballet's 2004 revival.

Although I grew up on the company, I've only been able to see ABT intermittently over the past several years, and so I've lost track of the newest dancers, and can no longer reliably tell you on which corps members you should train an experienced eye. I can, however, report that glamour remains despite Nina Ananiashvili's recent farewell to the company, and there are some promising dancers whose performances stand out, even to the occasional viewer.

Among the handsome transplants to the company is the Italian star danseur Roberto Bolle, who danced the role of the shepherd Aminta who falls in love with the titular huntress, played on Wednesday evening by Michelle Wiles. Bolle has had the opportunity to dance the role at the Royal Ballet (he partners Darcey Bussell on the DVD that's available commercially) and has obviously benefited from the coaching at the institution where Ashton created Sylvia.

He makes a gallant partner for Wiles. Both are tall dancers, and though I had the sense that the Ashton choreography forced both of them to sacrifice the length of their lines in favor of getting all the steps in, Bolle presented Wiles to her best advantage in their pas de deux.

Michele Wiles and Roberto Bolle in Sylvia. Photo: Gene Schiavone.

Wiles is a technically superior dancer, which must be-- and here I'm only guessing-- why she was assigned one of the most taxing of Ashton's roles. The choreographer jam-packs the evening with solos for the ballerina (Margot Fonteyn in the original production) and doesn't stint on the technique--a fusillade of hops on pointe, peripatetic jumps that coyly switch directions on a dime, light little gargouillades that seem to skim across the stage. And yet, although Wiles manages to execute, one can't help noticing that it's a struggle.

At this point, I hasten to add that the above criticism is not necessarily what I would describe as a technical deficiency. However, it does, in my mind, open an insight into why Ashton often looks fussy, and even dated. Pointe work--and more specifically the use of the feet in pointe shoes-- has, I think, changed vastly in the nearly 57 years since the ballet premiered.

Nowadays, particularly as the technology of the pointe shoe has changed, dancers are more apt to spring in the Russian fashion or even jump onto pointe. Shoes--like the Gaynor Mindens that are so popular for their ability to hold the dancer securely on pointe--are nonetheless difficult to hold in the right position when it comes to performing hops en pointe. And because the current fashion is to pop onto pointe and use the shank as a prop, rather than relying solely on the muscles of the feet to hold the position on pointe, the ability to rise slowly through the foot, or smoothly and articulately roll down to flat are out of style. The result is that Ashton's steps, which demand complex changes of weight and quick jumps, mixed with fluid eleves onto pointe, tend to look jerky, sometimes unsteady and even perplexingly capricious.

Wiles barrels through the role, and in a certain sense her attack and damn-the-torpedoes approach fits the idea of the fiercely independent huntress Sylvia. When she flies across the stage into Bolle's arms, it's as much a testament to Sylvia's spirit of derring-do as her besotted love for Aminta. Delicacy is not her strength however --her legs have a gorgeous length to them, but those bourrees looked a bit too sluggish--and ultimately Wiles' Sylvia is less beguiling than brassy.

In general, the men seemed to fare better at managing the Ashton style. Cory Stearns took to the role of the evil hunter Orion with a zest that launched powerful turns. As Eros, Daniil Simkin very nearly stole the show, easily navigating the quick beats and footwork that makes Ashton so interesting, and broadly interpreting his mime. One could easily comprehend his winning over the icy Kristi Boone as the austere goddess Diana.

As the ballet spins toward its happy finale with a flood of gods and demi-gods, Veronika Part lent a serenity to Terpsichore, partnered by Alexander Hammoudi as Apollo, and Maria Riccetto and Isaac Stappas hit just the right graceful lilt as Persephone and Pluto. Leann Underwood and Jared Matthews took on the roles of Ceres and Jaseion, but it was Misty Copeland and Craig Salstein who stole the scene in the last act with their saucy and adorable commitment to the otherwise mystifying characters of the two goats.

ABT's season at the Metropolitan Opera House continues through July 11, 2009 with Romeo & Juliet.