Theater Review : Emperor Norton, The Musical

The spirit of rugged individualism is the very lifeblood of San Francisco. It's the kind of place where Starchild can run for County Supervisor, where we not only put a measure to impeach President Bush on the ballot, but dozens of people will go out to Ocean Beach in mid-winter and lie upon the sand to spell the words "IMPEACH" with their bodies. I like to think of it as a city of the grand flourish.

And ever has the City by the Bay been this way, it appears. The city's slogan, "Find Yourself Here," was never more applicable than to the epic figure of San Franciscan Joshua Norton, Emperor of the United States, who ruled the nation from his seat of power, a little place on Commercial Street between Kearny and Montgomery. And for those not familiar with the man who was once one of San Francisco's most beloved figures, Kim Ohanneson and Marty Axelrod have devised a rough-hewn tribute to Emperor Norton I, Emperor Norton, The Musical, which runs through April 1 at the tiny Shelton Theater off Union Square.

The production, which had its origins as a cabaret act is undeniably cheesy -- and long -- with a handmade look about it. Painted flats of scenes from the Hyde Street pier or Tadich Grill simply lean against the back wall and the 12-member cast barely fits on the postage stamp sized stage. With little room backstage at the Shelton, the divan that you see in the lobby at intermission makes its way onto stage in the second act. There's a whiff of the sense that this show had roots in a group of pals goofing off and yet there's also something good humored and heartwarming about what is obviously a labor-of-love project. The folksy numbers are cute and despite -- no, perhaps because of -- its amateur moments, it somehow fits the quirky DIY story of the Emp, as he was more familiarly known.

Read more on KQED.org's Arts & Culture site.

San Francisco Ballet: Firebird, Artifact, The Dance House

Yuri Possokhov surely has a goofy romantic streak in him. In his first commission for San Francisco Ballet as official Choreographer in Residence, Possokhov’s new version of the old Ballet Russes boy-meets-bird classic, “Firebird,” has a sleek contemporary aesthetic, but the moment when it really takes flight is in the sweetly naïve “first love” pas de deux for the Prince and Princess, danced at the premiere on Thursday night by Tiit Helimets and Rachel Viselli.

Possokhov originally created a version of “Firebird” for the Oregon Ballet Theatre in 2004, although the word is that he made substantial changes for this production. Nevertheless, although it had some standout moments—many of which center on a gleeful Pascal Molat, chewing the scenery as the demon Kaschei—this “Firebird” in the end doesn’t quite satisfy.

It’s not for lack of skillful collaborators. Adding the titular Firebird to her list of exotic creature roles, Yuan Yuan Tan gave the impression less of the mercurial critter we’ve come to expect, but a rather grander more haughty bird, and Helimets brings an doodle-headed charm to the not-too-bright-but-very-lucky Prince Ivan, who wins her allegiance and assistance in defeating the demon so he can win his princess.

Costume designs by Sandra Woodall explicitly call up the ballet’s Russian origins, but seem at odds with Yuri Zhukov’s elegant, rather minimalist sets. Taken separately, the pretty Russian dresses and the airy skeletal masses of the décor would stand up well, but seen together, they leave one with the sense of being half-in and half-out of a fairytale. The orchestra, under the baton of Martin West, also sounded unusually sluggish particularly through the dance of the demons and the final apotheosis, perhaps partly accounting for why the finale of the ballet, a scene usually heart-breaking in its gloriousness, appeared a little underwhelming.

Inevitably, however, one can’t help but compare this version with the original “Firebird,” a lavish work created by Michel Fokine in 1910 to a dazzling score by Igor Stravinsky that was seen locally a few years back when the Kirov Ballet brought a reconstruction to Cal Performances. While Possokhov retains most of the original libretto--conceived by Serge Diaghilev out of several Russian folktales-- his choice of the shorter “Firebird Suite,” devised by Stravinsky in 1945 instead of the full 1910 version of the score, has meant that much of the storytelling has been compressed, making for a good ballet, though not a great one.

On Thursday night, the company also returned to the blood red barre of David Bintley’s “The Dance House.” Created for SFB in 1994 in the maelstrom of the AIDS crisis, “The Dance House” had something of a histrionic feel when it debuted, but the years have softened the edges a little and abstracted the ballet into a better, though still programmatic sketch of doomed lives in the microcosm of a ballet classroom. In the central role of the bringer of death, Gonzalo Garcia unleashed a decidedly earthy, oddly sympathetic take on a problematic character created originally by Anthony Randazzo, while Tina LeBlanc and Kristin Long reprised the roles they created in the first and last movements respectively, joined by Viselli who gave a respectable inner quiet to her adagio pas de deux with Helimets.

More eagerly anticipated though, was the return of “Artifact Suite” William Forsythe’s deconstructed ballet which dazzled audiences last season, and which arrived on Program 1 on Tuesday night. With a lead cast as diverse as Muriel Maffre, Pierre-François Vilanoba, Lorena Feijoo, Pascal Molat and Elana Altman, it was clear that Forsythe’s idiosyncratic work is meant to look vastly different on every body. But just as clearly, it’s Maffre who makes the most of this freedom. Surrounded by ranks of corps members signalling enigmatic semaphores behind her, she traces a long arc with her leg that swoops into a teetering dive for maximum effect.

Notable in the masses of humanity that fill the stage was corps member Lily Rogers, whose incised, almost insolent lines brought unexpected clarity to the second movement. Rogers’ debut next week in the role of the Firebird should worth seeing.

A ballet like “Artifact” should always be on the program with a George Balanchine work. On Program 1 it was “Divertimento No. 15,” to the Mozart work of the same name and conducted by George Cleve. Watching the patterned brush of dozens of legs, the push through the hips in a step forward, the wide sweep of an arm, and then seeing it taken to a new extreme by Forsythe was like watching the journey that ballet has taken over the years. Among the five principal women of “Divertimento,” Katita Waldo offered exactly the right delicate pointe placement, turning mere steps into sparkling chains, which is not to detract from Kristin Long, Frances Chung, Vanessa Zahorian and Viselli, who navigated their solos with cheerful aplomb, as did the trio of principal men Gennadi Nedvigin, Jaime Garcia Castilla and Nicolas Blanc.

Also on Program 2 was Helgi Tomasson’s jaunty “Blue Rose,” and rounding out Program 1 was Jacques Garnier’s “Aunis” given a speedy slingshot velocity by Garrett Anderson, James Sofranko, and Rory Hohenstein.

San Francisco Ballet: 2007 Opening Gala

It’s not often that pieces on a gala program surprise you, but San Francisco Ballet’s Opening Gala at the War Memorial Opera House on Wednesday night went beyond the usual star-studded pieces d’occasion to offer an evening of thoughtful, often provocative dance.

None was more surprising or engrossing than Yuri Possokhov’s “Bitter Tears,” a world premiere unveiled by Muriel Maffre, accompanied by countertenor Mark Crayton singing the famous “Stille Amare” or “Poison Aria” from G.F. Handel's “Tolomeo.” Combining spare modernism with a formality that evoked the court ballets of the 17th and 18th century, this startling work melded theater, opera and dance to explore tantalizing imagery. Even if Possokhov’s intentions were not immediately apparent to anyone unfamiliar with Handel’s tale of betrayal and death in ancient Egypt, the drama playing out onstage was nonetheless compelling. From her stately entrance, clad in a pale flesh colored leotard and a flame gold skirt, to her shedding of the skirt to reveal a diaphanous tutu frame, to her final throes in beautifully ugly sharpened angles, Maffre embodied the wisping vapor of poison itself twining around Crayton as he described his slow descent into death. This was not your usual gala fare.

As devotees of the company know, Maffre has announced her retirement from the company at the end of this season, though clearly she is still at the height of her artistic powers. Maffre has never seemed to worry much about going out on a limb in any performance, as if somehow she respects her audience enough to know they’ll appreciate the challenge of even the most esoteric interpretations, and the audience responds in equal measure.

An enigmatic air also surrounded Yuan Yuan Tan and Damian Smith, who floated through dreamy, peripatetic acrobatics in a duet from Christopher Wheeldon’s “After the Rain,” set to the music of Arvo Part. No less impressive, if more violent in its undertones was the Armenian-born Davit Karapetyan’s “Last Breath,” an impressively caustic solo to music from the film “Matrix Revolutions.”

The program also included several revivals of works from the 1970s-- among the most successful, Jacques Garnier’s 1979 ballet “Aunis,” which kicked off the entire program. Aunis is the old name for the area of France on the Atlantic coast around La Rochelle, and appropriately enough it was up to the trio of Frenchmen -- Nicolas Blanc, Pierre-François Vilanoba and Pascal Molat – to put their own stamp on the winged contractions and flights across the stage to Maurice Pacher’s arrangements of folktunes on accordion.

Tina LeBlanc and Gennadi Nedvigin gave their own wholly convincing spin to Gerald Arpino’s “L’Air d’Esprit,” a Romantic-tinged tribute to the great ballerina Olga Spessivtseva set to the music of the “Giselle” composer Adolph Adam. Nedvigin was more than suitably airy, but it was bravura precision and speed from LeBlanc – who surely has the fastest feet in the West -- that dazzled with its unexpected edginess.

In a different vein, San Francisco Ballet’s newest principal Molly Smolen offered a solo, “Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan,” accompanied on the piano by Roy Bogas. Smolen was coached in the role by Lynn Seymour -- for whom Sir Frederick Ashton originally created the piece in 1975 -- and she evinces something of Seymour’s wildness as she throws herself almost instinctively into the pure sensation and feeling of the arches and twining arms. If the deceptively simple-looking “Five Dances” seems a touch dated, it is nevertheless a credit to Smolen’s expressive powers that she kept it interesting to the end.

In a more classical vein, Lorena Feijoo and Tiit Helimets worked hard to infuse the duet from the second act of “Giselle” with a Romantic glow. Vanessa Zahorian gave her Aurora a bit of American attack in the grand pas de deux from “The Sleeping Beauty,” which SFB will perform in its entirety later in the season. Partnered by Gonzalo Garcia, who whipped through his solos with panache, Zahorian looks like the details of the role are still in development, even as the dancing hits a solid note technically.

Nutnaree Pipit-Suksun and Vilanoba unfurled a quiet air of composure and the intensity from the inside out to Helgi Tomasson’s contemplative “7 for Eight,” while Kristin Long and Joan Boada put the champagne fizz into Tomasson’s “Soirees Musicales,” a frothy display of virtuoso sauciness to the music of Benjamin Britten.

The evening, under the baton of Martin West, ended with the buoyant finale from George Balanchine’s “Symphony in C,” led by a sunny Frances Chung and Garrett Anderson.

Theater Review: "Homeland"

"Holy smokes, it's the story of my life," I thought during the first act of Homeland, Jay Kuo's terrific new musical, which has been workshopped at the New Conservatory Theatre and arrived as a semi-staged production at the Magic Theatre over the weekend.

A followup to his successful romantic comedy, Insignificant Others, Homeland finds Kuo again mining the local landscape and coming up with a gem of a bittersweet tale about love blooming in the rarefied world of San Francisco.

It's a curious thing that happens quite often in the Bay Area -- a place where I'm startled if I run into a bona fide, born-and-bred local. No matter where we're from though, somehow we all wind up discovering "families" for ourselves. You know the family I mean -- the one with your crazy left wing activist friend, the struggling artist you met in a coffee shop, your wild and crazy, newly-freed-from-the-closet pal, and various interesting and probably left-leaning others. Kuo has built Homeland around just such an extended family, in this case, a loosely-banded guerilla street theater group. As a love story and a tale of the divisive politics of this current generation, it will no doubt connect to audiences at many levels, but for the Bay Area crowd, it will be doubly poignant, because it tells the stories of the people that you and I know -- maybe even the stories of our own lives. And as with all the best musicals, the circumstances in which our heroes find themselves might be farcical, even far-fetched, but it doesn't matter at all, because the characters ring true.

Read more on KQED.org's Art & Culture site.

Theater Review : "The Forest War"

When art speaks truth, it hurts, and it never hurts so much as in Mark Jackson's stylish new play The Forest War, which runs through January 14 at the Shotgun Players' Ashby Stage in Berkeley.

Written and directed with imaginative flair, The Forest War comes in the form of Japanese Kabuki theater, from the choreographed stylized stage movements and tableaux, to Valera Coble's beautifully-textured elaborate costumes, to Jackson's formalized, rhythmic dialogue. It's a classic jidai geki, or Japanese period drama, addressing themes that are timeless and in this case, all too familiar.

The Forest War of the title has been prosecuted by the aging Grand Lord Karug, played by Drew Anderson, and after a decade, the long battles have decimated the country and demoralized its citizens. In theory, the war has been won, and Karug decides to pass the leadership to the peaceable Lord Kulan (Cassidy Brown) instead of his belligerent son, Lord Kain (Kevin Clarke). Thus the stage is set for your classic father/son power struggle. Read into it what you will.

Read more on KQED.org's Art & Culture site.

SFB: Giddy spinning at the Nutcracker

San Francisco Ballet
“Nutcracker”
War Memorial Opera House

There was giddy spinning going on outside of the War Memorial Opera House on Thursday night, even before a single dancer had stepped onto the stage for San Francisco Ballet’s holiday treat, Helgi Tomasson’s “Nutcracker.”

Little ones in elegant dresses and suits enacted their own sort of party scene as they clutched the teddy bears that ushers handed out at the door and practically vibrated with excitement in the lobby, which was decked out in silver and green for the holidays.

Inside, as the overture got underway, under the sprightly baton of Martin West, the kids kept up a low buzz of impatience, which settled in as the curtain went up on Michael Yeargan’s elegant San Francisco-inspired Victorian sets and Martin Pakledinaz’s frothy costumes.

Tomasson’s lovely “Nutcracker” – the fifth version San Francisco Ballet has staged since they started the Christmastime tradition back in 1944 – eschews the heavy psychological tack of some modern versions, although it is not just the simple bon-bon of most traditional “Nutcrackers” either. Tomasson’s young Clara is very much a “‘tween” -- not quite ready to give up her dolls, but old enough to be dancing formal dances with the adults, and her dreams emphasize the fantastical elements of childhood along with the wonder of growing up.

Hannah Foster made a charming Clara -- scrappy in the battle scene and visibly entranced when swept up in the arms of her transformed Nutcracker, Tiit Helimets. A natural prince, Helimets’ refined classicism made for a patrician, though somewhat bemused demeanor and his eerily soundless landings from prodigious jumps were impressive. As the King and Queen of the Snow, though, it was Joan Boada and Kristin Long who fully captured the exhilaration of the gorgeous Tchaikovsky music, filling out the shimmering snow flurries with eddying turns, punctuated by elegant poses that reached to the end of their fingertips.

If there was a lackluster moment in the ballet, it came only at the end with Yuan Yuan Tan as the transformed and newly tutu-ed Clara. Tan is a hugely talented dancer, but her lackadaisical attack and eccentric musicality on this occasion betrayed a peculiar lack of effort only thinly disguised by those hyper-mobile arabesques. Her uneven performance stood in contrast to that of Vanessa Zahorian, whose onstage glow warmed the stage as she led the bouquet of waltzing flowers with fast light turns as the Sugar Plum Fairy.

Happily, the rest of the company looked as if they relished the fun of bringing an old standard to vibrant life. If these dancers have done a hundred “Nutcrackers,” you’d never know it from gusto with which they attacked their roles. From the fuzzy-legged Kirill Zaretsky as the Mouse King, to the zesty Spanish spiced up by Rory Hohenstein, Hansuke Yamamoto, Jaime Garcia Castilla, Dores Andre and Frances Chung, to the Arabian with Nutnaree Pipit-Suksun tastefully twining around the brawny duo of Moises Martin and Brett Bauer -- everyone onstage tackled each of their characters with enthusiasm.

Brooke Moore, Mariellen Olson and Jennifer Stahl handled the candy-striped, be-ribboned French variation with decided aplomb, while Pascal Molat made it look as though the stage wasn’t large enough to contain his outsize leaps in the Chinese divertissement. As always, the rousing Russian trepak -- choreographed by Anatole Vilzak and danced with bouncing, bounding humor by James Sofranko, Garrett Anderson and new company member Benjamin Stewart -- brought a delighted roar from a crowd thoroughly enchanted.

This review originally appeared in the Contra Costa Times.

Dance Column: Holiday Treats

A veritable bouquet of holiday treats are headed our way starting this weekend. Some are like old friends, back for their annual visit, and others are newcomers, but safe to say, we won’t lack for entertaining things to take the kids of any age to see throughout the month of December.

ODC/Dance’s “The Velveteen Rabbit”

Why do I love “The Velveteen Rabbit” so much? Is it because I’m a sucker for hard luck cases? Possibly. I get farklempt at the mere description of the threadbare, velveteen fur and shabby velvet nose.

KT Nelson’s take on the tale of the “bunchy, fat bunny” and the boy who loves him has become an enduring holiday tradition, and justly so. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the enormously popular “The Velveteen Rabbit,” and a host of special guests will be on hand throughout ODC/Dance’s run to help celebrate. Among the events this weekend, Friday’s matinee (November 24) is Grandparent’s Day, Saturday (Nov 25) is ASL Signed Narration Day with actor Ty Giordano, and Sunday’s matinee (Nov 26) will be followed by a milk and cookies party with the dancers (Call the Yerba Buena box office for tickets to the party.)

And as always, plan to bring your stuffed animal friends along to enjoy the show. Don’t they deserve a night out too?

ODC/Dance performs Margery William’s beloved classic November 24 – December 10 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. (www.ybca.org, 415-978-2787)

Smuin Ballet “Christmas Ballet”
Fans of Michael Smuin’s holiday revue are in for a treat this year as the Smuin Ballet adds seven new numbers to the lineup, including three by Michael Smuin, two contributions from associate director Celia Fushille-Burke, and one apiece from Amy Seiwert and Shannon Hurlburt. With newly refreshed sets and costumes, this Christmas buffet, which comes in hot and cool versions, puts a sassy spin on the Christmas roundelay.

The 2006 edition of the “Christmas Ballet” makes its bow on the stage of the Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts November 24-25. Or you can catch it at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts from December 15-24. (www.smuinballet.org, 925-943-SHOW or 415-978-2787)

Moving Arts Dance Company’s “MAD Hatter” Performance and Tea Party
For something a little more unusual, follow Alice’s granddaughter Allyson down the rabbit hole at Moving Arts Dance Company’s second annual “MAD Hatter” Performance and Tea Party. There are sweets aplenty on the table and on the stage as choreographers Anandha Ray, Michael Lowe, Dudley Brooks, Jenny McAllister, Dianna Rowley, and Isabelle Sjahsam offer up their version of life in Wonderland.

Moving Arts will have two shows in San Francisco at the Cowell Theater on December 2 (www.fortmason.org, 415-345-7575) and two shows at the beautiful El Campinil Theatre in Antioch on December 9 (www.elcampaniltheatre.com, 925-757-9500).

Diablo Ballet’s “Nutcracker”
In collaboration with Civic Arts Education, Diablo Ballet will unveil its very first production of the “Nutcracker” at the Del Valle Theater in Walnut Creek. Directed by the Diablo Ballet Intermediate Program’s Rebecca Crowell, the production won’t lack for talent. Leading the cast of 58 dancers – which includes children and adult drawn from all over the East Bay, as well as the Diablo Ballet apprentices – will be Tina Kay Bohnstedt and Vikot Kabaniaev as the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier. Lauren Main de Lucia and Matthew Linzer will rule over the Land of Snow, and Nikolai Kabaniaev, Diablo’s co-artistic director, will even take his turn onstage as Herr Drosselmeyer.

Diablo Ballet’s “Nutcracker” premieres at the Del Valle Theatre in Walnut Creek, December 1-3. (www.diabloballet.org, 925-943-SHOW)

San Francisco Ballet “Nutcracker”
The gold standard of "Nutcrackers” around here has always been the San Francisco Ballet production and Helgi Tomasson’s grand version, with its spectacular, larger-than-life sets and costumes holds delights for kids of any age. With dreamy scenes and even dreamier dancing, this “Nutcracker” is sure to send patrons, young and old, twirling out into the streets.

At the regular family performances, there’s milk and cookies in the lobby, plus, SFB also offers a chance to give a little holiday delight with the annual San Francisco Firefighters Toy Drive. Bring along a new toy or book to donate when you come to the show and the SF Firefighters will see that it brightens a needy child’s Christmas.

San Francisco Ballet’s “Nutcracker” runs December 14-31 at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco. (www.sfballet.org, 415-865-2000).

Contra Costa Ballet "Story of the Nutcracker"
For an early start on the holiday season, you can see the Contra Costa Ballet’s "Story of the Nutcracker," an hour-long version of the ballet, which features Diablo Ballet’s David Fonnegra and Company C’s Jenna Maul as the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier.

The Contra Costa Ballet performs their version of the holiday classic from November 30-December 2 at the Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts in the Hofmann Theater. (www.contracostaballet.org, 925-943-SHOW).

Berkeley Ballet “Nutcracker”
Teacher, choreographer, director, Sally Streets has been a mainstay of the Bay Area ballet scene, and this year the company she founded, Berkeley Ballet Theater, celebrates its 25th anniversary. Streets and Robert Nichols choreographed this colorful and lovely version of the Tchaikovsky classic to make a more intimate experience.

To kick off their anniversary season, they’ll be performing their production of the “Nutcracker” from December 8-17 at the Julia Morgan Theater in Berkeley. (www.berkeleyballet.org, 510-843-4689)

Smuin Ballet: Christmas Ballet 2006 edition

Smuin Ballet
“The Christmas Ballet” 2006 Edition
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
December 15-24, 2006

The post-Thanksgiving crowd at the Lesher Center showed no tryptophan drowsiness at the opening of Michael Smuin’s annual favorite, “The Christmas Ballet,” which made its bow last weekend with spiffed up new costumes by Sandra Woodall and newly designed scenery by Douglas Schmidt and Paul Swensen.

Smuin’s flagship productions are usually elaborate affairs, and this year’s refurbishment of the company’s holiday staple actually benefits from having more sparkles and fringe. In the first half, new white drapery suggests an elegant ballroom with outsized lacy snowflakes hovering overhead, while the second half is bathed in yards of Christmas crimson velvet, punctuated by dozens of fluffy, white, beachball-sized “Santa cap” pom-poms.

Admittedly, the designers have gone a little projection-happy, in the second act particularly, where video of everything from church bells to mistletoe only distract from the dancing. Still, all the new flash and dash does help create some truly lovely images. In the opening to the second act, “Christmas by the Bay,” the dancers now dip and swirl behind projections of San Francisco holiday scenes, and the simplest images -- the lights of Union Square’s Christmas tree or the outlines of the Embarcadero Center -- make a romantic frame around the five couples.

The high-flying company is also still getting used to the low-flying snowflakes. During an excerpt from Handel’s “Messiah,” Ikolo Griffin tossed his partner so vigorously that her head bonked into one of the snowflakes, causing some mirth in the audience.

If the company took a little time to warm to their work in the opening “Magnificat,” by the second piece -- “Noel Nouvelet,” Amy Seiwert’s contribution to this year’s edition -- Aaron Thayer and Erin Yarbrough make a ____ couple. Seiwert gives them simple, and yet unexpectedly lovely choreography – mere pirouettes facing in opposite directions are effective because they fit to the music beautifully.

The look of the women in the company has gradually been shifting towards more of the bullet-like, compact zingers like Vanessa Thiessen, who stood out in the “Zither Carol” and “Away in a Manger.” In “For Unto Us a Child is Born” Yarbrough, partnered with James Strong, evinces the same speedy, knife-like technique along with a regal, classical upper torso, but when she lets her hair down, as she does in “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?” – a sweetly romantic diversion contributed by Shannon Hurlburt -- the sex appeal is palpable. As always, Strong proves himself a more-than-just-reliable squire, particularly in “Hodie Christus Natus Est” which he danced on Friday night with Thiessen. Her light jumps and intent confidence gave the couple an illusion of breathlessness, but when certain lifts proved difficult to manage, it was Strong who kept the duet moving.

The company will always need its long and leggy dancers though. Nicole Trerise makes a luscious comedienne in “Licht Bensh’n” and the ever popular “Santa Baby,” which had the audience clapping from the first “ba-boom.” She shows off a more serious side paired with Thayer and two other couples in Celia Fushille-Burke’s “Es ist Ein Ros Entsprungen.” The graceful refinement of Fushille-Burke’s choreography for the three couples has all the hallmarks of her own dancing. The footwork for this section, as well as for her “Resonet in Laudibus,” which immediately followed, offered deceptively pretty, and yet tricky combinations -- of the sort that Fushille-Burke herself always navigated with aplomb.

Jessica Touchet shows off formidable baton-twirling skills in the oddly gimmicky “Carol of the Bells,” which Smuin created for her this year, while Hurlburt, always a favorite, reprises his signature showstopper roles in “Little Drummer Boy” and the dazzling tap solo to “Bells of Dublin,” as well as his usual solid yeoman work throughout the evening.

And though it’s often the new dancers -- like Griffin, Courtney Hellebuyck, and Yoko Callegari, who just joined the company this month – who receive notice, there’s a definite pleasure in watching others like Aaron Thayer improve year by year. Thayer’s solo -- a new section created by Smuin to a recording of Placido Domingo singing “La Virgen Lava Panales”-- has a mature conviction and vitality, and in “Pretty Paper” a duet with Robin Cornwall, he hits just the right balance of playful solicitude.

In the end, this year’s edition of “The Christmas Ballet” is jam-packed with 28 bite-sized numbers. Some of them are cheeseball, some quite lovely, but all adding up to a jolly way to start the season.

This review originally appeared in the Contra Costa Times.

Dance Review: SF Hip Hop DanceFest

San Francisco Hip Hop DanceFest
Palace of Fine Arts Theatre
November 19, 2006

A certain palpable energy was humming through the audience at the Palace of Fine Arts, where Micaya’s San Francisco Hip Hop DanceFest played host from November 17-19 to two dozen groups from around the world.

Festivals like these should be archived for textbook study. After all, we’re living out a golden opportunity to trace the evolution of a dance phenomenon that has been growing and absorbing changes rapidly in the last ten years. Moves borrowed from gymnastics, capoeira, conventions drawn from modern, African and jazz dance have all been steadily seeping into hip hop and, I dare say, hip hop has been crossing over in the other direction as well. The SF Hip Hop DanceFest offers a timely look at where the forward momentum is taking the culture.

“Work it out! Represent!” someone shouted in the darkness as Funk Beyond Control took their places for “Side Show,” a jubilant free-wheeling routine for the nearly 30 dancers.

This Bay Area-based troupe – made up mainly of teenagers – took top honors at the Hip Hop World Championships and it’s easy to see why. “Side Show,” a winking tribute to the auto sydeshows of the now-emerging hyphy culture, was choreographed by several of the dancers along with director Darnell Carroll and these young dancers set the bar for the whole night at a high level. With a zippy pace and flambosting solos that merged into pulsing urban funk parties “Side Show’s” rowdy hyphy-train fired up the audience, who grooved along with tunes from Too $hort, E-40 and Keak da Sneak as well as Santana and Janet Jackson. But lest you think it was all frenzy, lurking under the rollicking atmosphere was an unmistakable focus and discipline that made FBC one of the cleanest crews of the evening.

For a change of pace, local group fLO-Ology Dance Collective moved into a house groove, adopting a dramatic narrative approach to their politically-charged “Dancing in the Wind.” If the quintet of dancers looked a little less focused than FBC nevertheless, their clear command of the driving rhythms underscored a sense of desperation in the pulse of modern life.

Later in the program, the brawny Lux Aeterna had a slightly different take, merging capoeira with hip hop beats in a more fully-realized work titled “Navaras,” to the music of the same name by Juno Reactor. Colored in twining silver body paint against a blood red screen, the five dancers seemed tinged with the slime of urban dystopia. Less refined than gymnastic, nevertheless, the dancers made good use of their charismatic physicality, and Jacob “Kujo” Lyons’ fearless tumbles across the floor, planches and gymnastic flares, while seemingly out of context, were impressive nonetheless.

Clad in grey and black hoodies, Khaotic GroovemintZ, from Vallejo served up sexy breaks in a fly routine titled “VII,” while the tough-as-nails Extreme, a group of six women from Montreal, Canada set a convincing “don’t mess with the b-girl” tempo. Hailing from Boulder, CO was Elements of Motion, whose athletic “Mile High” featured power moves, freezes and acrobatics that sent the crowd into cheers.

The clubbing couples of “2 AM” from Phoenix Dance Company showed a more industrial sensibility melded with hip hop, while SanRancune’s “It’s Deep…” for the Paris-based duo of Meech and Joseph Go along with David Imbert, mixed an animatronic pop-and-lock feeling with a dark cool European delivery. Shaun Evaristo’s serious-looking, thirteen-member Gen 2, from Daly City, adopted a casually grounded urban style in the group piece “Team is Back.”

Somewhat mystifying was Mind over Matter’s “Ghetto Circus,” which closed the evening. Featuring a bewigged Allan Frias as ringmaster, “Ghetto Circus” looked less like a circus and more disturbingly like a cross between a poorly costumed voguing act and a questionable cheer routine. That the dancers of this crew have skills was evident, but they deserved better material to work with.

High points of the program, though, were two solos, one from a rubber-man Kenichi Ebina, who replaced an injured Rauly Dueñas at the last minute and one from the human cartoon, Takahiro Ueno. The liquid-limbed Ueno, who won the 2006 Showtime at the Apollo Dance Challenge, also won spontaneous cheers from the crowd with his contortionist antics in “Nightmare Spiral,” which called up images of a carnival shooting gallery, a hat trick that weirdly inverts the “bullet time” effect, melting legs. He has to be seen to be believed.

Looking a bit like a lanky, nerdy otaku in his loose red track suit, Kenichi delighted the audience with whimsical but expert mime perfectly synched with a soundtrack of noise effects. From the old flashlight in the jacket trick to hovering balances a la Keanu Reeves in “The Matrix,” it wasn’t that it was hard to see how the tricks were done – the magic was in the artistry of the perfect illusion, which made suspended any disbelief entirely. Now that Jet Li has retired, maybe it’s time to call Kenichi and Takahiro in.

This review originally appeared in In Dance.

Music Review : John Santos and the Machete Ensemble: The Farewell Concert

It kinda started in your ribs -- just a little tic from side to side that happened reflexively as the Machete Ensemble sent the first notes into the air. Pretty soon it moved into the tip of your shoulders -- just a bit of a bounce. And that set your head nodding in time with the beat. Before long, you found yourself swinging and swaying in the Palace of Fine Arts Theater's groovy reclining seats, which luckily left a lot of leg room in front, in case you wanted to ... you know ... get up and dance. Which most people did.

It seemed like everyone who was ever part of the San Francisco Latin jazz scene was on hand to bid adios to John Santos' Machete Ensemble, which disbanded in a blowout concert on November 12 after twenty-one years of turning up the Afro-Latin heat in the Bay Area.

All night long, a parade of former Machete members as well as friends and family came up on the stage to jam with the core group of Macheteros -- Orlando Torriente on vocals, John Calloway on flute, Ron Stallings and Melecio Magdaluyo on saxes and clarinet, Wayne Wallace on trombone, Murray Low on piano, David Belove on bass, Paul van Wageningen on drums and Orestes Vilató on just about everything else. And sitting in the middle of it all was the genial, chatty Santos himself, on the congas emblazoned with red, white and blue "Impeach Bush" stickers -- as charming as ever, although, as he admitted, talking a little faster than usual so as to fit in all the fun in a brief amount of time.

Read more on KQED.org's Art & Culture site.

Music Review : SF Jazz Festival: Kamikaze Ground Crew

For their first performance back in the Bay Area in 13 years, the Kamikaze Ground Crew got a warm welcome at the Great American Music Hall at the San Francisco Jazz Festival. After all, it's really a hometown crowd for the seven-member band, most of whom still have local ties, even though the crew is largely based now in New York.

It's a loose knit group of talent -- all of them involved in lots of other projects. Co-founders Doug Wieselman and Gina Leishman both write music for dance and theater -- the latter most recently composing scores for Berkeley Rep's Mother Courage and Cal Shakes' As You Like It -- and trumpet-player Steven Bernstein and Kenny Wolleson head their own rollicking band Sex Mob. In fact, a majority of the compositions that the KGC unveiled on Wednesday night, came courtesy of Leishman and Bernstein, but those looking for the exuberance of Sex Mob, or the witty, light touch of Leishman's Shakespearean songs like "It was a lover and his lass" would have been confused at the start.

What seems clear is that in the years since KGC's start as the pit band for the Flying Karamazov Brothers, a lot of experimenting has been going on. So it was that some of what we got that night was esoteric, some of it impenetrable, while other pieces were lively and even antic. All put together, though, it made for a program that suffered from uneven pacing.

Read more on KQED.org's Art & Culture site.

Music Review : SF Jazz Festival: Arturo Sandoval

What is it about los Cubanos? Artists like Los Carpinteros craft incredibly sculpted social critiques. Dancers such as Carlos Acosta, the Carreno clan and the Feijoo sisters have stormed the ballet world. And their musicians -- their musicians always rock the house.

The audience in the Herbst Theater was primed from the outset when trumpet master Arturo Sandoval took the spotlight at the San Francisco Jazz Festival. And if there was any disappointment that evening, it was that the show had to end some time.

Backed by a tight-knit quintet that included Ed Calle on sax, Javier Concepcion on keyboards, Armando Gola on bass, Tomasito Cruz on congas and Alexis Arce on drums, Sandoval hit the stage at a blistering pace, dispatching double digit high notes on his trumpet solos with almost irritating ease.

Read more on KQED.org's Art & Culture site.

Theater Review: Stew's "Passing Strange"

"Stew" is a great moniker for the rock musician-poet-filmmaker, all-around-performing-artist, whose Passing Strange made its bow last week at Berkeley Rep. He's a rich mix of flavors, a bubbling cauldron of ideas and talents, and his latest effort, which takes an autobiographical look at his development as a young black musician, is a kind of spicy recipe based on his life. Some of the ingredients might seem improbable, but the final dish is worth savoring.

Passing Strange takes its title from Othello's description of how he won Desdemona's heart. But as with much of the wordsmithy in this play -- which Stew and partner Heidi Rodewald first developed at the Sundance Institute and which will move on to New York's Public Theater after the Berkeley run -- "passing" is meant to encompass numerous other meanings: passing for white or passing for black, being passed up, passing through, passing on. The word itself has a sense of restlessness that is reflected in the rhythm of the play as well as the music, as it follows Stew's youthful escapades -- a Baptist upbringing in LA and coming of age amidst rarefied surroundings in Amsterdam and Berlin.

Read more on the KQED Arts & Culture site.

Lyon Opera Ballet spotlights three women choreographers

Lyon Opera Ballet
“Die Grosse Fuge,” “Fantasie,” “Groosland”
Cal Performances, Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley
October 27-28,2006

When the Lyon Opera Ballet -- which Cal Performances presented at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall last Friday and Saturday nights -- gets on stage, there’s one thing you can be sure of, there will be athletic inventions of mind-bending capriciousness in the offing.

The works that this attractive troupe performs tend to be highly energetic and physically alert on the most obvious level, but what’s most appealing is the satisfying meatiness underneath. Their triple bill this time – featuring the works of Anna Teresa de Keersmaeker, Sasha Waltz and Maguy Marin – was not a program of esoteric intellectual works, but it was smart and even provocative on a number of levels.

The Belgian De Keersmaeker’s “Die Grosse Fuge,” for instance, made a galvanizing vehicle for the company.

On a bare stage under the hot exposed glare of a grid of lamps, seven men and one woman play out a high velocity contest in Ann Weckx’s dark business suits. Spiralling through the air with limbs flung wide or in contracted balls, they tumble and roll to the ground with an almost intoxicated zest to the music of Beethoven’s “Grosse Fuge,” as recorded by the Quatuor Debussy.

Although there’s a story inherent in the simple fact of putting a single woman -- Caelyn Knight -- amidst the men, De Keersmaeker doesn’t make too much of the situation, rather illustrating the fugue form in the complex patterns of choreography as dancers pick up phrases of movement and then pass it to others in rolling canons. Knight devours space as hungrily as the men, rolls up her sleeves with them and takes her tumbles to the floor with the same aggressive confidence that marks all of the Lyon dancers. But doubtless De Keersmaeker’s objective is to make you notice the very fact that you’ve noticed that there is only one woman.

Sasha Waltz’s hazy, dreamlike “Fantasie,” which followed on the program, covers different and even more ambiguous ground. Created for the Lyon Opera Ballet and premiered earlier this year “Fantasie” – danced first in silence, then to a recording of the Schubert Fantasie in F minor – effects some arresting scenes. At the start Bruno Cezario and Fernando Carrion Caballero confront each other in an unsettlingly slow encounter in which Caballero’s arm seem to pass through Cezario’s body. Yu Otagaki tightrope walks into Caballero’s orbit for a duet of garishly twisted limbs and other dancers join them, swaying in a knot in the corner.

In Martin Hauk’s shadowy darkness, some of the imagery is compelling. Still, one can’t help feeling that the work lacks development and is over-long. For a lengthy section of the ballet, the dancers seem to take a childlike pleasure in flitting about the stage with “airplane arms” but the story seems lost until we see Otagaki melting away from Caballero. He appears stricken and all the dancers vanish leaving Cezario alone onstage, as if within a fading dream.

And then you have to wonder Maguy Marin’s dreams look like. Her diverting 1989 ballet “Groosland” puts 20 dancers onstage, looking uncharacteristically zaftig in Montserrat Casanova’s padded “fat suits” featuring prim blue and chartreuse outfits. They mince and teeter through complicated little folk dances with a nimble charm that elicited not a few chuckles from the audience and the Rubenesque dancers are rather touching in their obvious delight in dancing to Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. These characters are obviously far more comfortable with their illusory flesh than you or I might be with a real body, and when the dancers strip off the blue and chartreuse to romp “naked,” we’re reminded that this or any other body is just a vehicle, and that the real grace comes from the dancer within.

This review originally appeared in the Contra Costa Times.

Theater Review : Theatre of Yugen: Noh Pressure Cooker

First let me say that I'm all for the trying. The Noh Pressure Cooker Festival, which ran over three weekends in October, is meant to offer a range of new works by the NOHSpace's resident troupe Theatre of Yugen. Now in its 28th season, this active group of performers studies a variety of techniques centered around the venerable 600-year old Japanese theater form, but their focus in the Pressure Cooker Festival is new work and contemporary stories. Anyone wandering in looking for a classical Noh version of The Tale of Genji is in the wrong place.

If the air of experimentation is admirable, however, the execution still leaves something of a slapdash feeling. Enthusiasm for their work obviously informed the three pieces on display on the second weekend, but the overall impression was that these were works-in-progress that, for the most part, were just not thoroughly thought out.

Read more on KQED.org's Art & Culture site.

Dance Review: Gamelan Sekar Jaya's "Kali Yuga"

Gamelan Sekar Jaya
“Kali Yuga: The Age of Chaos”
Cal Performances, Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley
October 14, 2006

A fantastical battle between gods crosses paths with the realism of a modern world out of balance in Gamelan Sekar Jaya’s spell-binding drama “Kali Yuga: The Age of Chaos,” which premiered in its entirety at Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall on Saturday night.

Co-sponsored by Cal Performances and World Arts West, this lavish, multi-textured work draws its inspiration from Hindu cosmology in which the last of the four cyclical yugas, or ages of humanity, is called the Kali Yuga, a dark time marked spiritual dissolution, conflict and hypocrisy. Gamelan Sekar Jaya performed excerpts of the evening-length piece at last year’s San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, and it is a such worthy theatrical spectacle that it seems a real pity that there was only one day of performances it.

A collaboration that brings Hindu together with Muslim, American with Balinese, “Kali Yuga” could be taken as a microcosm of a land of diverse contradictions – a paradisical island steeped in Hindu mythologywhere families still give offerings to the gods to protect their rice paddies, and a part of a Muslim nation torn by religious conflict and terrorist violence. Directed by Ellen Sebastian Chang -- who also directed the 2001 “Kawit Legong”— this richly appointed production finds the kind of unique flavor of fusion that we’ve come to expect from this American gamelan ensemble.

Founded in 1979, El Cerrito’s Gamelan Sekar Jaya – whose name means “victorious flower orchestra” in Balinese – has become one of the most distinguished groups of its kind in or outside of Bali. Under the musical direction of Indonesian guest artists I Made Arnawa and I Dewa Putu Berata, Sekar Jaya impressively navigates the music composed by Arnawa, along with the troupe’s general manager Wayne Vitale.

The term “gamelan” refers to a set of metal or bamboo instruments, and each gamelan collection is tuned as a unit, with the instruments always remaining together, no matter who the players are. Sekar Jaya is comprised of five smaller gamelan ensembles whose potent combinations of percussion instruments include small metal pots, gongs, drums, flutes, and jegogan made from giant bamboo tubes, among many others. There is a universe implied in the gamelan sounds, which can elicit the sense of consonant order or dissonant chaos with equal ease, and it all adds up to a robust and deeply satisfying layering of sound that fill the ears literally, even as Elaine Buckholtz’s visuals and Jack Carpenter’s lighting fill the eye.

The thirty musicians of Gamelan Sekar Jaya’s ensemble make for an impressive centerpiece, enfolded by a U-shaped ramp along which unfolds the epic battle between Dewi Sri, the Balinese Rice Goddess and Bursasana, a demon who disturbs the order of the universe. Looming overhead is a rough circular hanging woven out of palms highlighted by a palette of light and shifting projections, but the bulk of the action takes place at the front of stage, where divine battles metamorphose into seemingly innocuous jaunts by tourists traveling through Bali or a masked dance turns into a modern rave. It’s a pleasing arrangement which places the musicians in the middle, and sometimes as a part, of the dance drama.

Part mythos and part morality play, “Kali Yuga” unfolds in seven episodes. There are ritualistically paced Balinese dances from the Rice Goddess – an elaborately costumed Tjokorda Isteri Putra Padmini -- and her four acolytes. I Ketut Rina unleashes savage gravelly screeches and raucous laughter as the demon Bursasana, who tempts “Kali Yuga” choreographer I Wayan Dibia, as the Man with Four Faces, while they dance an unsettling series of topeng or masked dances. There’s a nightclubbing rave, a kind of contemporary version of the Balinese warrior’s kecak dance. And as a modern tourist, Oakland rap artist Rashidi Oman-Byrd even throws in a few hiphop moves as he raps the words of Jakarta-based poet Goenawan Mohamed.

Ambitious in scope, “Kali Yuga” gets at a multiplicity of concepts, but underlying it, there is the sense that in a world wracked by violence, nightclub bombings, vice and corruption, there is still the hope of order and consonance rising from the chaos.

If the ending -- a few lines spoken by children -- seems inconclusive and vague, still “Kali Yuga’s” emotional resonance hangs in the air like the reverberant sounding of the gongs.

This review originally appeared in the Contra Costa Times.

Dance Review: David Dorfman's "underground"

"Would you overthrow your government? If not, why not?" Spoken quite matter-of-factly on the Yerba Buena Center stage, the question hangs in the air for a moment, as we all consider what it would mean.

In perhaps his most provocative work to date, David Dorfman turns a none-too-oblique gaze at contemporary apathy in underground, a multi-textured work that had its Bay Area premiere on September 21. His examination of activism and terrorism comes wrapped in a reminiscence of the "Days of Rage," when the '60s militant group, The Weathermen -- a splinter of the leftist Students for a Democratic Society -- waged a guerilla war against the U.S. government in protest of the Vietnam War. Bombings, riots -- they even busted Timothy Leary out of jail and got him to Algeria -- and yet, as revolutions go, the Weathermen's efforts to shake Americans from complacency through violence brought home to our doorsteps largely fizzled.

Read more on KQED.org's Arts & Culture site.

Chitresh Das and Kathak at the Crossroads: Innovation within Tradition

For three days at the end of September, San Francisco played host to one of the biggest gathering of Indian dance gurus in the country. The brainchild of the Bay Area’s resident kathak guru Pandit Chitresh Das, this symposium cum festival brought a roster of kathak experts whose names might not be familiar to the casual dance-goer, but who, in Indian dance circles – represent the legends of this classical form.

The evening performances, held at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, were long – running for at least three to three and a half hours – more Indian dance than I had ever seen all put together in my life. But the sum of it made for a fascinating primer on the form, as well as a heartening look at an age-old genre of dance that is undergoing conscious reinvention at the hands of its own preservers.

For many kathak fans, without doubt, the highlight was the appearance on Friday night of the legendary Pandit Birju Maharaj, descendant of the famous Maharaj family whose influence on modern kathak cannot be underestimated. Credited with bringing the element of choreographed theater into the world of kathak, Maharaj was in his own time a modernizer and innovator. Perhaps he still is, if the busy schedule on his website (http://birjumaharaj-kalashram.com) is anything to go by.

True to the Lucknow gharana’s style, (Maharaj is considered this school of kathak’s leading exponent) his invocation to Govinda had an expressively elegant and subtle character. Clad simply in white with a gold and saffron belt, Maharaj gave us a slow burn of twining arms and hands along with the occasional whimsical quirk of a brow.

Is it because of the nature of the dance’s structure, or because of the gurus’ natural pedagogical leanings that each performance became a bit of a lesson? Whatever the reason, for those of us who have had little exposure to the form, it was a welcome part of the performance. It was during this point that I realized that something on the order of 80% of this audience lived and breathed these dauntingly complex rhythms – they clapped along with the musicians easily and were delighted by the challenge of a nine and a half beat metric. I’m lucky if I can discern the difference between ¾ time and 6/8 time, so unraveling the complex rhythms and bols of kathak, learning the tihais had become a little like trying to learn the game of chess simply by watching. I was fine up to a point, and then inevitably someone castled.

Maharaj, though, interjects small nuggets into his performance. “We see that there are different views, different ways,” he says, speaking of the symposium’s focus on the modernization of kathak, “but always, it’s dhaa-dhin-dhin-dhaa,” -- the simplest start to the rhythmic 16 beat cycle that kathak dancers call the “teental.” “The teental is symmetrical,” he continues, “but it always reaches to ‘1,’ to Krishna, to home.”

Maharaj, at 68, is a charming raconteur as well, and probably could have danced an entire evening of stories by himself. In one segment, he does what the jazz musicians call “trading fours” with the tabla player, using the rhythms of his ankle bells and the rolls of the tabla to depict a heroine (bells) being playfully chased through the forest by a hero (the tabla). And a padhant or recitation of rhythms, sketching out various kinds of birds, including a chicken running down the street with her chicks scurrying after her, was both dazzling and amusing.

Sharing the stage that evening with Maharaj was an accomplished group of musicians, including the renowned sarangi player, Pandit Ramesh Mishra.

Notable performances from the other dancers included that of Maharaj’s student Madhumita Roy, who has trained in both the Jaipur and Lucknow gharanas. Her explanation of the tukara as a rhythm that to her feels like a person trying to move forward even as someone else pulls them back from behind emerged compellingly in her composition depicting the childish impulses of Krishna, held back by his sense of duty as a king. A technically brilliant Prashant Shah also startled the audience with unusually secure turns and lightning fast footwork, as did Charlotte Moraga’s whirlwind manege of fast turns around the stage in Chitresh Das’ “Pancha Jati.”

Kathak, especially the Jaipur gharana brand, lends itself to a kind of rock star, virtuoso performance and it’s that side of kathak that comes forward most forcefully in Das’ recent collaboration with tapper Jason Samuels Smith in “India Jazz Suites.” Less a “fusion” per se, and more of a East-shakes-hands-with-West, this showstopper piece -- which features both Das’ Indian musicians as well as the jazz compositions of Marcus Shelby – brought down the house on Saturday night.

It was an evening that started at a high level of energy, with the wild and hot-blooded Rajendra Gangani, and a more delicate, but equally intense performance by Saswati Sen (also a disciple of Birju Maharaj). Sen’s compositions to a time cycle of nine and a half beats – a gift to her from Maharaj – was both seductive and a challenge intellectually. Everywhere in that rhythmically savvy crowd, we were visibly trying to keep up with the beat. In the dark, I could even see Gangani, who slipped into an empty seat after the break, keeping time along with her.

Theater Review: Mother Courage/As You Like It

What a difference good sound and lighting can make to a show. It may sound like the blinking obvious, but when you see the good stuff, you realize how much it elevates a production.

Take the recent shows from Berkeley Rep and Cal Shakes -- Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Shakespeare's As You Like It, respectively -- both of which present smooth, professional results from what can be self-consciously theatrical material. Minor quibbles aside, both shows leave you in a thoroughly satisfied mood and a huge part of that is the effect of the setting, the lights and the music.

Interestingly enough, the talented Alexander V. Nichols designed the lighting for both shows, and for both, Gina Leishman created original scores. Well, gifted professionals are always in demand, especially when their work makes you look so good.

Read more on KQED.org's Art & Culture site.

Dance Review : ChoreoFest

On bright sunny afternoons, the Yerba Buena Gardens looks like the storybook picture of an urban oasis, with the waterfall rolling down on one side, sunbathers dotting the sloping hills and kids playing soccer on the green lawn. Perhaps it's not the most ideal setting for a dance performance. It's true that low flying pigeons don't usually buzz the audience in the nearby Center for the Arts Theater, nor is the music usually obscured by a passing Harley. But there's something pleasantly escapist about slipping out for lunch hour and seeing a free show, and when the show turns out to be well-conceived and satisfying, well, you feel as though you've gotten away with something.

The Yerba Buena Gardens Festival puts on free midday concerts and events through October, and this year for a week in August, the festival turned its focus on local choreographers and dancers, culminating in an hour-long program brought together by curator Brechin Flournoy and directed by Laura Elaine Ellis. Festivals that put their artists in a lineup and send them out one after the other are a dime a dozen, but for the Choreofest program Ellis eschewed such usual conventions and created instead a performance that blended and overlapped performers in a cohesive and engaging way. Just big enough to suit the outdoor expanse, and yet intimate enough to suit the eclectic style of the artists.

Read more on KQED.org's Art & Culture site.

Dance: little seismic dance at CounterPULSE

little seismic dance company
CounterPULSE
August 25-27, 2006

The spiffy CounterPULSE space was home to the debut of Katie Faulkner’s little seismic dance company in late August. What a perfect name for this new troupe, which delivered a small-scale, yet ground-shaking performance.

Over the last few years, Faulkner has appeared around the Bay Area, notably with AXIS Dance Company and Randee Paufve. This time, she presented a thoroughly stimulating program of mainly her own works, with an emphasis on varying textures and backgrounds delivered with the utmost care. One could only wish that every evening of dance was produced so well and with such taste.

From the outset, Faulkner’s choreography seemed to take in stride the constraints of the CounterPULSE space. Once a gallery for ICAN, the narrow stage -- which is deeper than it is wide -- has sometimes been a challenge for dance groups, although in this show, the dancers appeared to relish the unusual proportions. In “Fit of the Survivalist,” which opened the program, Janet Collard struggles to walk a long skewed line down the narrow space and the bodies compacting against each other, stacking on top of one another only heightens the sense of self-conscious dysfunctionality.

The canny use of environment and structures is there too in the “Shadow of Matter,” which premiered on this program. An investigation of physical and Newtonian mechanics between five dancers, (Collard, Margaret Cromwell, Rebecca Gilbert, Sonshorée Giles and Renée Waters), this rather lengthy piece was perhaps not as successful as “Survivalist” and yet, the stories of attraction and repulsion that Faulkner constructs between each dancer with their elastic and inelastic collisions had a visual momentum that carried not only from one dancer to the next, but also from one segment of the piece into the next.

In between on the menu of dances, Randee Paufve’s angular “In Exhale,” danced by Rebecca Johnson, was the only piece not created by Faulkner on the program. Johnson’s loose low hip swivels and double-hinging leg and arm swings were nicely counterposed by the almost runic shapes she created, but in the end the abstract piece felt fragmentary, like a movement study that didn’t seem to really go anywhere.

More finished was the clever “Decorum,” which Faulkner created for AXIS last year. A sly portrait of insiders (the gossiping Giles and Faulkner on a Victorian divan) and outsiders (Bonnie Lewkowicz, in her wheelchair in a square of light downstage), “Decorum” is detailed with specific phrases– a push here, a nod there – that repeated inexactly and sometimes off balance, adding up to an overall effect of emotive watchworks that swiftly devolve into chaos.

A filmed piece, “High Tide” gave the program an added dimension. Filmed out near the old Sutro Baths by J.C. Earle, this short subject follows four women-- Faulkner, Collard, Stephanie Ballas and Rebecca Gilbert—as they roam the ruined walls by the oceanside. In this conception, the film makes the choreography as much about what you don’t see as about what you do. Movement happens in fragments, or just out of reach of the camera, inviting instead, a much more specific focus on shape and form rather than on the overall spectacle.

Faulkner has pursued that impulse in her 2004 “Still,” danced with disquieting serenity by Collard under a bare light bulb to music by Slow Blow and sound design by Jacques Poulin-Denis. Swathed in a filmstrip garnished dress that could give any Project Runway outfit a run for its money, Collard’s strangely plumed odd bird gave her movements the occasional jerkiness of a silent film played at 24 frames per second. A fading silent film star or perhaps an embodiment of the entire era of the silver screen drawing its last gasp, Collard was riveting in her performance.

For this new venture, Faulkner has gathered a group of dancers who are clean, well trained, but most importantly, display no doubts or vagueness about the motivation of their movements. When Collard grasps her leg to lift it forward or shuffles the celluloid fringes of her skirt, we may only be guessing as to why she needs to do so, but she herself is clearly motivated by a lucid internal logic. It means that as an audience, we can continue to watch, satisfied in the knowledge that whatever we don’t comprehend at the moment will unfold and become clear as the piece progresses.

That clarity of purpose may be Faulkner’s greatest asset as a choreographer. She is undoubtedly meticulous – the costumes she created for each piece had none of the bargain-basement thrift store look, but were instead assembled with an eye to both color and functionality, with the added benefit of actually flattering the dancers. And her choreography is organically and engrossingly structured in a way that leads the viewer in gently and then traps them in a maze of unpredictable and yet compelling patterns. Ultimately it added up to a top-quality debut from a dancemaker we will hopefully see much more of in the seasons to come.

Theater Review : Super Vision

The Netizens of the world are in the midst of an identity crisis -- there is more information publicly available about each of us, and I have a sneaking suspicion that we have less to fear from the government's Echelon agencies snooping on our reading lists than we do from Amazon.com's patented shopper profiling technology. Heck, even the government is turning to the online giants to get its info. AOL recently ignited a firestorm by making public a detailed record of their users' online searches. They didn't have names attached to the searches, but the New York Times found it almost laughably easy to identify user No. 4417749 simply by analyzing what subjects she searched on.

This mounting identity crisis is precisely the subject of Super Vision, an elegantly, beautiful and disquieting multimedia production by The Builder's Association and studio dbox, which I caught at the Yerba Buena Center forthe Arts. Mixing cutting-edge computer technology with real-time action, it's a show that makes a powerful impact, visually and viscerally.

Read more on KQED.org's Art & Culture site.

Dance Review: West Wave Dance Festival

There are those who think of San Francisco's four week, eight program West Wave Dance Festival as a marathon, but I prefer to consider it an investment in the future. It's true that with works by 48 different choreographers -- and not all of it good -- it can seem like a bit of a slog. And I must confess that amongst the 24 that I saw at the Project Artaud Theatre, the dances ranged from seriously absorbing, to "Are you kidding me?" Still, West Wave's summer festival represents a bargain of a chance to sample a broad variety. If you tried to see all these dance-makers in their individual shows during the year you'd have -- well, you'd have a fulltime job as a dance critic.

In this year's lineup, many of the choreographers were new-ish to the San Francisco scene -- many of them look fresh out of college, and so do their dances. (I hope they still teach form and structure of choreography in school -- it wasn't always apparent.) But the festival also intersperses works -- often in progress -- from more experienced hands, and hopefully the opportunity to cross-pollinate and watch other work will be an education in and of itself.

Read more on KQED.org's Art & Culture site.

Dance Review: WestWave Programs 2 & 3

West Wave Dance Festival: Programs 2 & 3
Project Artaud Theater

At fifteen years old, the West Wave Dance Festival, which opened last week in the Project Artaud Theater in San Francisco has become one of the best places to see what the Bay Area’s modern dance choreographers are up to in the long summer months that stretch between one season and the next.

Boasting the work of some 48 choreographers, this year’s festival is a three week extravaganza that offers the many small companies and young choreographers of the area the opportunity to put their work -- some still in development, some excerpts of finished pieces – in front of an audience.

True, the festival’s early programs can be something of a mixed bag, with more polished pieces appearing side by side with ones that have the feeling of a college dance concert. Nevertheless, being there at the start of a young modern choreographer’s ventures is a tempting draw and the format of six to seven pieces per performance which the festival has settled into means that each program is nicely varied, but doesn’t outstay its welcome.

Both last Thursday and last Saturday night (Program 2 and 3), for instance, featured stark duets, a bit of theater, some dance played against video and a dash of slapstick humor.

In fact, it was pleasant to see a little levity in an arena where the dance is often about serious issues. In Kerry Mehling’s “Just a Little One,” Mehling takes on the persona of a 20s lounge lizard visiting a speakeasy. Her inebriated solo, accompanied by an equally inebriated monologue -- the text was Dorothy Parker’s short piece of the same title – from his young flapper date who appears larger than life on the video screen behind. Another video-dance work in Thursday night’s Program 2, Rebecca Wender’s “Afterward” took less advantage of its video component, failing to mesh the onscreen with the live action movement.

If Jenny McAllister’s “Only in Fairytales” – a series of miniature “Fractured Fairytales” -- was less rigorously executed, it still brought a few chuckles, but generally, the more literal “literary” pieces were often a weak point in the program. A danced version of Prospero’s Act V “but this rough magic I here abjure” speech from “The Tempest” took little advantage of the richly descriptive word imagery available, and Apryl Renee’s “Trope of Seuss” -- a riff on “Green Eggs and Ham” – couldn’t get past it’s own absurdity to evolve into more than a one-note vignette.

On the serious side, Sue Roginski and Christy Funsch’s “Alone Together” was easily the most clearly structured and cleanly executed investigation of space and form on the program. At times languid, and yet highly specific in the way they fit shapes together, Roginski and Funsch gave the work an internal logic that had a focus missing in other pieces.

Interestingly, the program also demonstrated the limitations of presenting a work in a theater setting. An excerpt of Cheryl Chaddick’s “Landslide” -- which her company performed last May in the underground rave hangout, the Gingerbread Warehouse, now called the Danzhaus – made less sense out of context and took on a histrionic tenor that missed the elegant sweep of Chaddick’s more choreographed sections of the same piece.

The nice thing about the West Wave Dance Festival is that these programs promise to only gain momentum as the festival continues this week and next and some of the strongest and most experienced contributors are yet to come.

In the next two weeks’ lineup of choreographers and dancers are reliably inventive dance-makers, including Manuel Biag’s always intriguing SHIFT>>> Physical Theater with a sneak preview of his latest work “The Shape of Poison” and the talented Amy Seiwert, whose “Tonic” will close Program 6 (Friday & Saturday, July 22-23).

And there will be no shortage of form and structure on Program 7 (Thursday & Friday, July 27-28), which will feature work from such experienced hands as Janice Garrett, Heidi Schweiker and the always exciting mixed-ability troupe, AXIS Dance Company. Benjamin Levy will reprise his “Violent Momentum” and there will be new pieces from Alex Ketley, and the promising Kate Weare. And Viktor Kabaniaev, who continues to develop a unique contemporary choreographic style, will be presenting a duet for Smuin Ballet’s Ethan White and Diablo Ballet’s Tina Kay Bohnstedt on Program 8 (Saturday & Sunday July 29-30).

WHAT: West Wave Dance Festival 2006
Program 4- Tuesday, July 18: Martt Lawrence, Patricia Banchik-Bell, Carmen Carnes, group A, Aura Fischbeck, Vanguard Dance Company

Program 5- Thursday, July 20: Linda Bair Dance Company, Katie Faulkner/little seismic dance, Monica Marks/UDanceElectra, Pappas and Dancers, Vispo Dance, Ross Dance Company

Program 6- Saturday-Sunday, July 22-23: Amy Seiwert, SHIFT>>> Physical Theater, Dance Ceres, Deborah Slater Dance Theater, Facing East Music + Dance, Alma Esperanza Cunningham Movement

Program 7- Thursday-Friday, July 27-28: Alex Ketley, LEVYdance, AXIS Dance Company, Kate Weare, Janice Garrett & Dancers, Heidi Schweiker

Program 8- Saturday-Sunday, July 29-30: KT Nelson (special guest appearance), SPOON, Navarrete x Kajiyama, Lisa Townsend Company, Viktor Kabaniaev, Randy Paufve

Program 9- Monday, July 24: A night of all dance and no tech, curated by Anna Dal Pino & John LeFan, At ODC Theater , 3153 17th Street at Shotwell, SF. This Program only, tickets: $10

Dance Review: Dandelion Dance Theatre's "Anicca"

Dandelion Dance Theatre
“Anicca”
Theatre of Yugen
July 14, 2006

A thoroughly naked man with a whistle on a lanyard around his neck and a clipboard in his hand greeted latecomers to a recent evening’s performance of Anicca. They shuffled apologetically into the Theatre of Yugen’s tiny Noh Space, clambering over the row of unclothed people sitting serenely on the floor, and tried so hard not to stare. Was it me, or did they all look just a little disinclined to remove their coats?

Lesson? Don’t be late to performances of Dandelion Dance Theater’s “Undressed Project” – the latest installment of which played at the Noh Space last weekend.

Anicca or Night Marsh II is not Oh! Calcutta! But neither is it a coy production. It’s all hanging out there, right from the start. Oh, sure, there are some clothes on the performers, but they mainly exist to be removed in this series of vignettes that start in the intimate box of the Noh Space, and then continue on the winding site-specific installation segment to culminate outside in the garden overlooking Alabama Street.

Nakedness, or clothedness, as relates to power is the core concept that lurks behind this anti-sartorial bit of dance-theater. It’s certainly not a new concept, choreographers have been doing this since time immemorial – recent exponents include Karen Finley, Pina Bausch, Glen Tetley, to name just a few -- but one begins to suspect that the performance is more of a culmination of a course of healing therapy than serious choreography. There’s a lot of tension-easing ribaldry in the spoken sidelong comments and the movement of the piece, but underlying it all is the question – how naked did it really need to be?

The assemblage of dancers features as wide a variety of shapes and sizes as you can imagine, with two mixed-ability performers, one who performs with a leg prosthesis and the other who works from her wheelchair. A circus barker spotlight, people running amok in BVDs to the music of the hyper-falsetto chansons of the Tiger Lilies, a guy playing Dvorak’s Humoresque on the violin as he’s denuded-- it all starts to look like a cross between healing arts therapy and burlesque.

Still there are a few moments of intriguing dancing. An opening duel between two tough guys who assert primacy by pants-ing each other is amusing, and there’s a gracefully contentious fight over a prosthetic leg and a pair of glasses that covers roughly the same territory. Perhaps the most touching is a solo in which a woman whose leg has been amputated recount the moments she spent locked in the remains of a grisly car wreck.

French choreographer Boris Charmatz once told dance critic Clive Barnes "The naked body hides every bit as much as it reveals." And what is of greatest interest in Anicca is the untold stories of these bodies, those tattoos and stretch marks. Frustrating, though, is the sense that the piece ultimately just scratches at the idea that a body is the story of one’s life -- that it can be just another costume, one more suit that we wear. The typical disinclination to reveal a body part (“The sleeves cover that scar,” “A high neckline hides the flabby skin,” etc.) is the story.

Anicca is hardly prudish and yet, it’s also hardly revelatory. As we rose to begin the walk through of the installation-art portion of the show, I couldn’t help thinking, “nakedness and emotion, vulnerability, a walk down the ‘Hall of Impermanence’ -- yes, I get it. But, then what?”

We entered the outside garden, where I observed -- over the heads of the twenty-odd naked performers who mingled among us -- the familiar San Francisco fog gently roiling over the streets toward us. Swathed to the lip in my typical summer attire – which includes a field jacket over a Polartec fleece, sealed with a 48-inch pashminette scarf -- I placed my well-clad derriere on the metal chairs next to a quizzical ceramic garden goat and thought to myself, “Brrr.”

And yet, the performers stood stoically quivering amongst us as yet another drama played out on a blood smeared carpet under the trees. I pulled on a pair of lined leather gloves and tried politely not to think about shrinkage. And I tried to concentrate on what was going on. “Difficult. Very cold,” it says in my notes. Other audience members huddled under blankets and finally, at the conclusion of the show, one of them tossed a blanket to the performers.

“Here! Now you can cover up!”

They made a beeline for the great indoors. The show was over.

This review originally appeared on KQED.org