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Metaphorical Mysteries
I made it back to the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Thursday to catch ODC Dance’s second program, and was well rewarded. To begin with, “Fiendish Variations”—set to Bach’s Passacaglia in C Minor—has held up exceptionally well since its premiere last year, and may just be one of Brenda Way’s best works. But the premieres on this slate were KT Nelson’s, and I emerged an admirer of “Lost at Sea.”
Unlike Nelson works set to exuberant music by the likes of Swedish rock band Hoven Droven and minimalist Michael Nyman, “Lost at Sea” is not a crowd-pleaser. It is slow and enigmatic, set to a moody score by Phil Kline. A rim of light on the stage delineates something like a deck; the nine men and women wear faux-leather bottoms and racer back tank tops, and one of the inadvertent pleasures is seeing Yukie Fujimoto dressed like a modern dance Joan Jett. But the movement is supremely solemn, and wonderfully suggestive. At times the dancers flop like fish or careen like crew members, thankfully never literally impersonating either. Andrea Flores is memorably hoisted by two men in a long central trio, though it is Fujimoto’s searching stare that ends the work. What happens on stage—much of it very beautiful—cannot be reduced to a plotline. And what struck me most were the virtues that “Lost at Sea” shares with Nelson’s 2004 “RingRoundRozi.” Both allow their metaphors to breathe with mystery and imaginative possibility. Nelson is working at a very intuitive and gutsy level.
My only complaint: Kim Turos’s stage design for “Lost at Sea” looks amateurish, particularly the projections. For a full review of this program, check out Janice Berman in the Chronicle, and Voice of Dance’sAllan Ulrich, who pronounces thusly:
“Two weeks ago, on the opening night of ODC/Dance’s annual "Dancing Downtown" season, the revival of co-artistic director’s KT Nelson’s smashing RingRoundRozi stole a bit of the thunder from the two premieres by artistic director Brenda Way. Thursday (March 17) at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, it was clearly a case of déjà dansé. The premieres were Nelson’s, but the revivals of Way’s Fiendish Variations - Parts 1 and 2 and Crash reminded one anew that, beyond its corporate genius at fundraising, ODC/Dance has become a local institution the hard way - through sheer talent.
Not that there was anything wrong with Nelson’s Shenanigans and Lost at Sea. They’re both modest, agreeable, handsomely dispatched efforts, which demonstrate Nelson’s growing sophistication in choosing scores (are we done with all those obscure Nordic rock bands?). But one is, essentially, a party piece and the other is a technical exercise. Still, these are the chances you take with a modern dance repertory company; some dances endure and others are fated to evaporate.”
March 21, 2005 · 11:59 AM · Dance · Comments (0)
Direct from Cuba
San Francisco Ballet principal Lorena Feijoo left Cuba at age 20. Now her mother, once a member of the Ballet Nacional de Cuba herself, is visiting from Havanna. I had the pleasure of chatting with them for the Chronicle:
" "I insisted I wanted to be a ballerina," Lorena Feijoo remembers during a rehearsal break at San Francisco Ballet. She is clasping the hand of the woman next to her. Same tawny skin, same commanding brown eyes, same proud carriage: Lorena Feijoo and Lupe Calzadilla look like Russian nesting dolls, one a smaller copy of the other. Feijoo wears a red leotard and a smudge of lipstick where her mother has just kissed her cheek; mama has borrowed her daughter's red shawl and draped it across her shoulders with theatrical elan. "How old was I when I said that, madre?"
"Dos años!" Calzadilla shouts, with her hand in the air.
"Two years old," Feijoo says. "My God. I didn't even know this."
No one who has witnessed Feijoo's fiery classicism as a principal dancer at San Francisco Ballet would be surprised to learn her iron will revealed itself in toddlerhood. But when Lorena and Lupe are in the same room, stories of a life immersed in dancing keep pouring forth. Cuban ballet had entered a golden era when Calzadilla, a member of the Ballet Nacional de Cuba, gave birth to Feijoo. The teachers were legendary; the atmosphere familial. Calzadilla would leave her baby with the costume ladies during performances. "She'd be standing onstage in 'Swan Lake' and hear my cries," Feijoo says. "
March 21, 2005 · 08:36 AM · Dance · Comments (0)
Book Bites #9
Amy Hempel’s new story collection The Dog of the Marriage is a book to read not twice, but four or five times—but at your peril. As Hempel fans would expect, these are slim, aching stories with the lean force of poetry. It’s hard for me to think of a more incisive and tersely telling first paragraph than that of “Beach Town,” which I’ve committed to memory:
“The house next door was rented to the summer to a couple who swore at missed croquet shots. Their music at night was loud, and I liked it; it was not music I knew. Mornings, I picked up the empties they had lobbed across the hedge, Coronas with the limes wedged inside, and pitched them back over. We had not introduced ourselves these three months.”
The trouble arises if you try to return to your own writing. Suddenly every sentence you type is hopelessly trivial. It’s a paralyzing effect, and I’m trying to shake it off even as I’m tempted to pick up “The Dog of the Marriage” again for one more read.
March 17, 2005 · 09:02 AM · Books · Comments (0)
Merce Immersion
I spent the whole of Saturday at Stanford University taking in Encounter: Merce, the campus-wide celebration of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s residency, for the Chronicle:
"Call it a Merce Immersion: For a week it seemed you couldn't step outside Stanford's main quad without bumping into giddy computer-music students or seeing that playful Cunningham visage on a poster advertising "Encounter: Merce," the university's largest-ever multidisciplinary project.
The campus buzzed with anatomy classes analyzing Cunningham's famously challenging, torso-torquing movement; discussions of his company's beginnings at the free-spirited Black Mountain College; and a Cunningham-inspired "happening" at which, alas, not a whole lot happened.
There was so much to wrap your head around: The way that Cunningham freed dance from dependency on musical structure; pioneered the use of chance techniques alongside his late partner John Cage; and created a way of moving in which any step could follow from any other. But not even the most overwhelmed of Cunningham novices could fail to smell the heady whiff of liberation in the air Saturday as the dance company's residence built to a climax."
March 15, 2005 · 09:26 AM · Dance · Comments (0)
San Francisco Ballet’s fifth program, which I caught Friday, is to my eye the most satisfying offering of the season thus far. There is nothing new in it, but everything you need to feed your soul is contained in the ten minutes or so of Helgi Tomasson’s “Concerto Grosso.” It’s a short, seemingly simple work set to the baroque music of Geminiani. It was made for a gala two years ago, to showcase four corps men and the then-new soloist (now principal) Pascal Molat. And it keeps coming back because it leaves the audience in an awed hush. Indeed, it’s so unusual in American society to see men moving so gracefully, and with such a spirit of communality, that seeing “Concerto Grosso” is like coming across a pride of lions on the savannah: you watch reverently, quietly, as though afraid your slightest sound might scare off the exotic beauty before you.
All the men are excellent: Molat with that wonderful expression of relish on his face, Garrett Anderson with his irrepressible sensuality, Hansuke Yamamoto with his wickedly fast and clean turns. But the fun is choosing favorites, and I’ve fallen for Jaime Garcia Castilla. He’s very young and absolutely serious, with a stunningly high extension, and when he holds his leg in attitude it’s like the whole world has suddenly come into focus. If you see the ballet at no other time this year, see this program. Aside from “Concerto Grosso,” the company is dancing “The Four Temperaments” like nobody’s business, and Yuri Possokhov’s passionate “Study in Motion” holds up nicely from last season.
And if you don’t trust my assessment, I’ve got a whole raft of takes to offer. Want an idea of how bustling the critical community is on San Francisco’s dance scene? Check this out: SFB’s fourth and fifth programs were reviewed by Mary Ellen Hunt, Janice Berman, Rita Felciano, Paul Parish, Ann Murphy, and Allan Ulrich.
March 14, 2005 · 09:35 AM · Dance · Comments (0)
Space Age Symphony
My review of Yuri Possokhov’s new work for San Francisco Ballet, which premiered Wednesday, is now up on the Chronicle’s web site:
“The unimaginatively titled "Reflections" (snappy appellations have never been Possokhov's strong suit) is an attempt at academicism for the 21st century. It is ambitious, bold, sometimes muddled and ultimately enjoyable. It closed a program that also found the Ballet in its finest hour with an exquisite performance of Balanchine's "Square Dance."
If a single quality typifies Possokhov's small but steadily growing body of work, it is cinematic sweep, and "Reflections" is no exception. Working with Mendelssohn's first symphony, Possokhov has found inspiration in Ingmar Bergman's "Cries and Whispers," though film buffs could be forgiven for missing the connection. The movie's influence mostly manifests in Sandra Woodall's striking black, white and red visual design -- enhanced by towering mirrors in various arrangements -- and in a mood of high drama that sometimes feels extrinsic to the music.
The ballet launches like Balanchine's "Symphony in C" on Mars, with regimented lines of women and Kristin Long dashing through like a comet. The ladies wear corsets and pie-plate tutus that suggest a Space Age version of the naughty French maid outfit. They preen most alluringly with their backs arched deeply, hands saucily hugging hips.”
Equally newsworthy Wednesday evening was the pairing of Tina LeBlanc and Gonzalo Garcia in "Square Dance":
"Tina LeBlanc was once again sparkling as the lead female, powering quick footwork with a mastery that brought giggles of delight from smitten onlookers. Gonzalo Garcia has danced the lead male role before, and yet his rendition of the adagio solo struck as a revelation. The part is famously challenging, not so much technically taxing as emotionally exposed. Garcia immersed himself -- solemn, pensive, vulnerable.
But more exciting than the individual performances was the incredible partnership developing before our eyes. LeBlanc, one of the company's veteran ballerinas, has forged an improbable chemistry with her younger consort."
Check out the full review--with photo of the magisterial Muriel Maffre--in the paper.
March 11, 2005 · 09:22 AM · Dance · Comments (0)
The bound galleys for my memoir “The Lost Night” arrived this week, which is pretty damn exciting. After a satisfying night at San Francisco Ballet yesterday (look for the review in the Chronicle tomorrow), I’m pressing onward with the novel this afternoon. And just when I needed a little nudge past first draft dread, I’ve discovered this wonderful site with early versions of stories by San Francisco writer Julie Orringer, whose collection How to Breathe Underwater I so admired last year. Click this link and you’ll find pages from Orringer’s working journals and manuscript excerpts with her Stegner Fellowship professors’ comments. It’s a reassuring reminder that steady revision is sometimes the name of the game—though it helps to be blessed with Orringer’s talent.
March 10, 2005 · 11:23 AM · Books · Comments (0)
Just picked up the new Amy Hempel short story collection and am rubbing my hands at the chance to jump into it this evening.
My novel is beginning to show signs of improvement--it's still a mess, mind you, but I'm starting to see how it could be better. So in an effort to lengthen my compromised attention span, I won't be posting much this week. I will however be reviewing Yuri Possokhov's new work for San Francisco Ballet, which I've been looking forward to for months, for the Chronicle. And I'll be trucking down to Palo Alto to check out a handful of the explosion of activities Stanford has scheduled to coincide with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company's visit under their Encounter: Merce banner. I've also got quite a few other freelance journalism projects up my sleeve. So don't expect to hear from me here, but see you at the theater.
March 07, 2005 · 08:12 PM · Personal · Comments (0)
"Warming" Signs
ODC Dance, for non-Bay Area-dwelling dance fans, is San Francisco’s most established and prominent modern dance company. It’s led by three headstrong women who, in the seventies, drove a big yellow bus to California from Oberlin College (hence the acronym, for Oberlin Dance Collective). These days they’ve got an annual season at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (which kicked off Thursday and continues through March 20), a steady touring season, and a soon-to-expand headquarters that serves as the Mission District’s dance hub. Their other prime assets, besides longevity and real estate, are 11 very fine dancers and a jazzy company style. Co-artistic director KT Nelson’s work tends to be sensual and nakedly emotional. Artistic director Brenda Way’s choreography is generally more high concept, which is certainly the case with her latest, “On a Train Heading South,” a dance about global warming. It was the critical hit of last week’s gala, with Allan Ulrich proclaiming it a “miracle”:
“I never thought I would live to see a locally produced dance as clever as Brenda Way’s On a Train Heading South, a delectable parody of those grindingly earnest, half-baked socially conscious dances without a trace of artfulness that clog small performance spaces around town. To watch Anne Zivolich performing a part that suggests a cross between Cassandra and the personification of toxic waste run rampant is to observe comic dance at its most delirious. In fact, the whole production, which concludes the lengthy program, is a magnificent exercise in politically progressive chic turned on its head and given a good shaking.”
In the Chronicle, Janice Berman was also a believer:
"A dance about global warming" sounds like the intro to a performance by cartoonist Jules Pfeiffer's earnest, black-clad modern dancer. If you want to send a message, said moviemaker Sam Goldwyn, call Western Union. But artistic director Brenda Way's marvelous new "On a Train Heading South," highlighting ODC Dance's opener Thursday night at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, avoided all the pitfalls, delivering the goods with imagination, urgency and a wicked sense of humor.”
I’m more on the fence, and thinking it might take a second viewing to sort out my reactions. To be sure, Alexander V. Nichols’ visual design is a thing of immense beauty: a string of crystalline ice-blocks strung overhead like diamonds, dripping upon the stage with an eerily soothing patter. The whole stage looked like a glowing ice cavern, and made an eloquent statement in and of itself.
Way’s choreography teetered on the brink of moving, trading preachiness for pointed satire. I think I was more distracted by the lapses in structure than by the sanctimony. The work is at least three minutes too long. Anne Zivolich, as an unheard prophetess, gave a fabulously committed performance.
Way’s other premiere, “something about a nightingale,” struck me as not so much lightweight but confounding. There’s some kind of curiously convoluted fable struggling to find its telling here: libidinous men in high-waisted trousers, two preening chickadees (the gorgeous duo of Yukie Fujimoto and Andrea Flores), and a guy in spandex shorts who sends the whole scenario spiraling toward incomprehensibility.
Way has emerged as my favorite of ODC’s three choreographers over the last six years since I’ve been watching the company—I can still play vivid moments from her “24 Exposures” in my mind. But if you want to see her best work, return for “Fiendish Variations.” It’s on the company’s second program, which I plan to catch next Thursday. The slate also includes two premieres by KT Nelson, one a duet for Anne Zivolich and Private Freeman. See you there.
March 06, 2005 · 01:39 PM · Dance · Comments (0)
Beauty Bind
Chronicle culture writer Steven Winn uses the near-concurrence of John Rockwell’s column on the comeliness of New York City Ballet Dancers and the Oscars as a point of meditation on our conflicted attitudes towards beauty:
“New York Times dance critic John Rockwell kicked up a minor tempest recently when he wrote, of ballet dancers, that "looks do count: for dramatic verisimilitude, for romantic illusion, for box-office excitement." That such self-evident assertions would register as controversial says something about where we are these days in our unsettled view of beauty.
The dissonance in the culture runs deep. We tend to look at exquisite dancers, fashion models, gorgeous movie stars, even particularly lovely people in daily life as a slightly different species, part idols and part freaks who occupy an alternative plane. Being beautiful, we conclude, is some sort of uncrackable code. That conclusion allows us to diffuse envy and resentment into the more manageable components of rationalizing and discounting gorgeousness. We see beauty as a trick in some ways, a genetic ruse paired with the money, privilege and private trainers to cultivate it.”
March 03, 2005 · 08:50 AM · Dance · Comments (0)
A Generous "Giselle"
The hot cast to see in San Francisco Ballet’s “Giselle” last week was Tina LeBlanc and Gonzalo Garcia. I caught them Friday night. I wasn’t reviewing, wasn’t under pressure to analyze, and so I got to be swept away along with the standing ovation crowd. This was the most moved I’d ever been by “Giselle,” and I’ve seen it umpteen times (though my “umpteen” is admittedly smaller than that of more veteran critics).
Tina LeBlanc is a generous, warm actress, and this is a role where her diminutive height serves her well. She’s a fleet and fluttery village girl in the first act, playing her mad scene with pathos and restraint. In the second act, her petite stature and tender demeanor mark her as a fresh inductee into the Wilis’ society of ghosts. Just as touching as her performance was the way she’s taken still-young Garcia under her wing. LeBlanc is one of the company’s senior ballerinas, and Garcia is infinitely blessed by her patience toward him. In the second act, when Giselle reappears behind her grave and begins ladling lilies in Albrecht’s arms, there was a poignant reality behind the fantasy: A dead love heaping compassion upon her betrayer, but also one dancer offering the lessons of her artistry to another.
Their acting seemed a true collaboration rather than a collision of dramatic styles. Garcia played Albrecht rakishly and with deep remorse. The clarity of their mime made a striking contrast with Kristin Long and Guennadi Nedviguine, the cast I saw Wednesday night. With Long and Nedviguine, the gestures were broad and empty, more like cue cards to keep the action moving than like dialogue. With LeBlanc and Garcia, it looked like they had worked out every last word of what they were saying to each other, and the language seemed to hover in the air.
This was a strong cast all around: Katita Waldo was ravishing as Myrtha, Elizabeth Miner stood out as a solo Wili, and Peter Brandenhoff played Hilarion with a chump’s charm.
Allan Ulrich reviewed LeBlanc and Garcia’s Sunday matinee performance, while Janice Berman reviewed opening night’s pairing of Yuan Yuan Tan and Pierre-Francois Vilanoba.
UPDATE: Paul Parish considers the finer details of Kristin Long's performance for the DanceView Times.
March 01, 2005 · 09:59 AM · Dance · Comments (0)
