On We Struggle
“Leap into the New Year”
San Francisco Ballet
Streaming
January 14,2021
Rarely has the life-giving part of live performances, whether music, theater or dance, been more clearly demonstrated than San Francisco Ballet’s on-line Gala “Leap Into the New Year” on January 14, 2021. Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson, who will retire in June 2022, assembled an intriguing program with excerpts from four upcoming world premieres, two duets from the repertoire, and three Pas de Deux from the classics. Well balanced, well performed, with the help San Francisco’s fine SFBallet Orchestra, thankfully still under the baton of Martin West, it should have been a glorious evening instead it turned out to be an honest leap into the new season.
Most encouraging of the excerpts was Tomasson’s section of “Harmony”, set to Jean-Philippe Rameau with the splendid Nataly’a Feygina the piano soloist. Set on eight dancers, four soloists and four corps de ballet members, there was nary a non-classical step to be seen. With the women in pastel corsets and the men in doublets, the dancers’ enthusiasm They made pas de chats, flying leaps and precision landings look as if they were born to them. Rarely has artifice looked so natural.
Despite an online snag, Miles Thatcher’s excerpt from his work-in-progress showed fascinating ideas about, maybe, a kinship between sports and ballet. Filmed at the Museum of Modern Art, both in the galleries and on the roof top, the visuals, inspired by paintings in the gallery, impressed. Whether Thatcher will pull all the elements together, remains to be seen. The video malfunction also short-changed “Dedicated to . . .”, was Yuri Passokhov’s homage to his muse Yuan Yuan Tan (and her mother Su Zang). It was the one ballet, with its close-ups that enhanced Tan’s dramatic talents, that I would like to see streamed again.
Such was the heat emanating from Dores André and Luke Ingham in Danielle Rowe’s hot-jazz excerpt from “Wooden Chimes” that one can only hope that there were fire extinguishers on SF Opera’s stage. Set to a commissioned score by James M. Stephenson, theirs were fulminating top-speed entanglements of extended and entangled limbs, sky-high lifts and perilous dives. Max Cauthorn came upon them--as an intruder? a would lover of either of them? But for certain this man, literally and poetically, was in over his head.
The fourth excerpt featured a short film “Mrs Robinson” by Cathy Marston. Drawn, at least in part on the film “The Graduate”, Sarah Van Patten stole the clip as a sultry Mrs. Robinson. Marston is known for creating ballets inspired by literary sources and putting her own twist on them. We just have to wait and see if and how she brings this iconic story to life.
Misa Kuranaga charmed as Swanilda with an equally charming Angelo Greco. The two of them need to be seen in the entire “Coppelia."
Somewhat of a surprise, at least to this viewer, were two new principals, Nikisha Fogo and Julian MacKay. Tomasson introduced them by explaining that he wanted us to see them in two beautiful and difficult Pas de Deux. The first from “Don Quixote’s” wedding scene showcased (multiple) one-handed lifts and spiffy pointe and fan work. In the Pas de Deux from “Swan Lake” Fogo proved her adagio abilities. But without a context and on a blank stage, these two works still looked like competition performances.
copyright © Rita Felciano 2021
