Robert Moses' Kin poised for 'Helen' S.F. premiere

Underneath choreographer Robert Moses' urbane, composed exterior, you can almost feel the frothing intellectual energy of a mind always in motion. A conversation with Moses can range from sociopolitical ground, through poetry, and into music, art and philosophy with such ease that you wonder how he has time to think about all of this, as well as create new work for his 10-member company, Robert Moses' Kin, teach at Stanford University, raise his young kids with fellow choreographer and dancer Mary Carbonara, and still have time to sleep.

"Actually, I don't really sleep a lot," he says. "Now, I tend to go to bed when the kids go to bed at around 8:30, and I'm usually up by 1. Then I'm up and down through the evening, listening to music or writing, sometimes I'll just sit and consider stuff. I'm really up about 5, which is when my day gets going with other people because 5 a.m. is 8 a.m. in other places."

Robert Moses' Kin poised for 'Helen' S.F. premiere 

Dance: 26th Annual Izzie Awards presented

An atmosphere of casual collegiality pervaded the crowded ODC Theater on Monday night as the Bay Area dance world gathered for the 26th Annual Isadora Duncan Awards, affectionately known as the Izzies, hosted by choreographer Val Caniparoli and Oakland cultural maven Denise Pate-Pearson.

In the production categories, Lines Ballet's production of Alonzo King's "Scheherazade" was a big winner, taking home awards for music and visual design.

Miami City Ballet director Edward Villella was on hand to present a Sustained Achievement Award to Deborah DuBowy for her ongoing lecture series "Words on Dance."

Still, there was a sad irony in that Cathleen McCarthy and Joan Lazarus received kudos for their work with the WestWave Dance Festival in a year when harsh economic realities have forced a scaling back of much of the summer festival's performances. Among the literally thousands of artists whom WestWave has brought to the stage were Alex Ketley, Kara Davis, Katie Faulkner and Manuelito Biag, whose collaborative effort "Terra Incognita, Revisited," which debuted last year on a WestWave program, took home top choreographic and company performance honors.

For a complete list of nominees and winners, visit www.izzies.org.

Dance: 26th Annual Izzie Awards presented

S.F. Ballet Program 6 review: New territory

I could have used a road map to view Ashley Page's "Guide to Strange Places," which San Francisco Ballet premiered Friday night at the War Memorial Opera House, but unfortunately it wasn't until much later that I realized that there actually was a map in front of us nearly the whole time, a guide to parts unknown and unfathomable.

Urged on by the thumping, pulsing score of the same name by John Adams, the 18 dancers ricocheted off each other in quartets and pairs, showing off finely tuned musculature in Jon Morrell's body-hugging tops and shorts in various midnight shades of ruby, sapphire and emerald.

At the start, Frances Chung and Pascal Molat buzzed through complex machinations against a scrim painted like a vast road leading into darkness. That quickly gave way to scattered clusters of bodies pulsating with limb-cracking speed yet dwarfed by Morrell's burning weblike backdrop (lit by David Finn), which looked both ambiguously spidery and geometrically manmade. It is in fact a road map, though Page has said he prefers not to say to which strange place (suffice it to say that it is a highly recognizable location for many Bay Area audience members).

S.F. Ballet Program 6 review: New territory

S.F. Ballet review: 'Dances' lacks cohesion

It would be too easy to call Edwaard Liang's "Symphonic Dances" - which had its world premiere on Wednesday night when San Francisco Ballet opened Program 5 at the War Memorial Opera House - an abstract ballet.

Set to the music of the same name by Sergei Rachmaninoff and given an epic, if brisk interpretation by the orchestra under the baton of Martin West, "Symphonic Dances" looks lovely on the surface. The cast of 18 dancers, arranged in hierarchies of four corps de ballet couples, two soloist couples and six principal pairs, are sleekly striking in costume designer Mark Zappone's diaphanous shades of orange ranging from deep to pale, which contrast pleasingly with lighting designer Jack Mehler's deep undersea teals and heated russet reds.

But for all that, "Symphonic Dances" feels less abstract than simply lacking a core sense of purpose, an essential concept to tie the pretty dances together.

S.F. Ballet review: 'Dances' lacks cohesion

ODC/Dance Downtown review: 'Transit' really moves

Bold lives in motion energized the stage at the opening gala for ODC/Dance's repertory season, which kicked off on Thursday night at the Novellus Theater at Yerba Buena Center.

KT Nelson has integrated the velocity of wheeled movement into "Transit" in the form of artist Max Chen's distinctive bicycle art. Corey Brady and Natasha Adorlee Johnson coast in grand circles around the stage on a "breakfast table" bicycle, while Vanessa Thiessen and Daniel Santos fret and frivol over a morning cup of joe on a combination park bench and bike.

These unusual vehicles add an amusing and fantastical air to a portrait of everyday commuter lives, and they could have ended up as a mere gimmick, but Nelson is too savvy to rely solely on the oddity of her props. When "Transit" really needs to move, the dancers park the bikes and take flight off of their own considerable leg power through a space decked out to feel like a city square. Sheer curtains create windows that frame domestic scenes, and a small wedge of steps serves as a people-watching spot under bare lightbulbs suspended over the stage like droplets of rain.

ODC/Dance Downtown review: 'Transit' really moves 

ODC preps for Dance Downtown series at Yerba Buena

Things are getting a little talky during a rehearsal in the largest of ODC's broad, airy studios on Shotwell Street. Four of the company's women are dissecting a small problem - how to get a particular movement completely synchronized and match their angles. But as they work on it, choreographer Brenda Way taps Daniel Santos briskly on the shoulder and offers a simple imperative.

"Dance."

Within moments Santos and the guys are running through their paces under Way's watchful eye.

Clearly, there is not a minute to waste as the 10-member troupe preps for its annual ODC/Dance Downtown season, which opens tonight at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

Over 41 years, under the close guidance of founders Way, KT Nelson and Kimi Okada, ODC has grown from a dance collective run by friends to a veritable institution, with its own school, home and theater. If there's one thing that has served this nimble organization, it is the ability to keep all those parts going.

ODC preps for Dance Downtown series at Yerba Buena

iFLY SF Bay: Indoor skydiving's safe thrills

If the kid in you has always dreamed of flying through the air in free fall, but the adult in you hesitates at the idea of jumping from a plane, indoor skydiving may be just the thing for you.

In Union City, iFLY maintains a vertical wind tunnel that keeps fliers afloat on a cushion of air that mimics actual skydiving so closely that competitive professionals use the equipment for training. But iFLY's staff say the tunnel diving is so safe that even kids as young as 3 years old can try it out.

"Actually, 3-year-olds fly fantastically," says Cameron Cole, a supervisor at iFLY. "They tend to relax even more than older kids and adults do, so sometimes they do better."

iFLY SF Bay: Indoor skydiving's safe thrills

Ballet Flamenco: Troupe's fresh take on tradition

"I prefer to say we are blending rather than creating a fusion," declares Carolina Lugo, the vivacious dancer and leader of Ballet Flamenco, which premieres "Alas del Tiempo" ("Wings of Time") this weekend. "I think the word 'fusion' is overused."

Call it what you will, the brand of modern flamenco that Lugo and her daughter Carole Acuna have brought to stages around the Bay Area has a potent energy, whether it finds its roots in the Moorish hues of Granada or the pulsing samba cadences of Brazil.

"All those rhythms and melodies are a part of flamenco because Gypsies traveled through so many different countries," Lugo explains, "and blending those is a more apropos term for what we try to do."

Ballet Flamenco: Troupe's fresh take on tradition

Alvin Ailey review: Cool formality, hot hip-hop

There may have been changes at the top for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, now under the direction of the affable Robert Battle, but the spirit of the dancing was as bright as ever at the first performance of the company's regular weeklong Cal Performances run at Zellerbach Hall on Tuesday night.

If Battle, who took the reins last summer, seems content to steward the company's considerable repertoire, nevertheless there are hints that his leadership will continue to push Ailey in fresh directions, with commissions and acquisitions by choreographers well known to the company, but works just offbeat enough to pique curiosity about the future.

Leading off Program A - which repeats on Friday - was hip-hop choreographer Rennie Harris' "Home." For the Bay Area premiere, the extraordinary Matthew Rushing - who shifted from full-time dancer to company rehearsal director in 2010 - returned to the stage as a guest artist and he is the heartbeat of Harris' pulsing body of 14 dancers.

Alvin Ailey review: Cool formality, hot hip-hop

Menlowe Ballet's leap of faith with Michael Lowe

In the airy main studio at the Menlo Park Academy of Dance, costumes and props are stacked neatly in a corner of the studio, and dancers sprawled around the perimeter stretch quietly as Michael Lowe rehearses his fledgling company Menlowe Ballet for its spring season.

Dancer Ikolo Griffin tosses a wide-brimmed hat in the air, testing out new tricks for his role as the Ringmaster in Lowe's "Cirque," which will be on the program along with the choreographer's popular East-meets-West ballet "Double Happiness" and a special appearance by Berkeley's Savage Jazz Dance Company. Even though Griffin is working on the sidelines, Lowe has an eye on him and comes over to help. With the flick of a wrist, Lowe easily flips the hat up onto his head.

"Freddie Franklin taught me that," he says offhandedly, referencing one of the great stars of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.

Menlowe Ballet's leap of faith with Michael Lowe 

S.F. Ballet review: 'Romeo & Juliet'

Whether it's high-flying, sweet romance or gritty sword fights, there is more than a little something for everyone in San Francisco Ballet's "Romeo & Juliet," which opened Tuesday night at the War Memorial Opera House.

What's grown more satisfying over the years since 1994, when Helgi Tomasson unveiled his version of Shakespeare's classic drama of ill-fated lovers, is the legibility of the storytelling and the briskness with which Tomasson unrolls his tale. The central piazza in designer Jens-Jacob Worsaae's Renaissance Verona still feels more crammed than Juliet's bedroom, but with small details deftly inserted into key scenes, there is a lot more clarity onstage.

Maria Kochetkova and Joan Boada's pairing was intensely appealing Tuesday night. From those wide eyes to the tips of her delicately articulate feet, every inch of Kochetkova's performance was bent toward expressiveness. While it was enchanting to watch feathery saute jumps and skimming bourrees en pointe that travel as swiftly as she can run across the stage, even more fascinating was the way she employed those skills to imply an internal world, a mind skittering and racing from one thought to the next.

S.F. Ballet review: 'Romeo & Juliet'