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"Den Glemte Nat" is out in the Netherlands:

May 30, 2006  ·  11:13 AM   ·  The Lost Night   ·  Comments (1)

First Ever Grotto Works

"The Lost Night" is coming out in paperback June 26, and I'm in good company at my place of work, the SF Writers Grotto, where no fewer than eight of our members have books hitting the shelves this spring and summer. We're throwing a party to celebrate. You saw it here first:

An Invitation to "Grotto Works" on June 24th!

We invite you to our "Grotto Works" Celebration on Saturday, June 24th!

The San Francisco Writer’s Grotto invites you to a celebration of an astonishing EIGHT BOOKS being published in May-July by Grotto authors

Join us for brief readings, wine, beer, victuals, and comradery at the new Grotto offices

Saturday, June 24, 2006: 7-10 pm

MC: Oscar Villalon, SF Chronicle Book Review Editor

Diet for a Dead Planet: Big Business and the Coming Food Crisis, by Christopher D. Cook

Masterminds: Genius, DNA, and Quest to Rewrite Life, by David Ewing Duncan

House of Thieves, by Kaui Hart Hemmings

The Lost Night: A Daughter's Search for the Truth of Her Father's Murder, by Rachel Howard

Pucker, by Melanie Gideon

The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo, by Peter Orner

East Wind, Rain, by Caroline Paul

A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History's Greatest Traveler, by Jason Roberts

LOCATION:

490 Second Street (at Bryant)
Second Floor
San Francisco, California

See you on the 24th!!!

Click here for the Grotto's website.

Special note: We're limited by fire marshall constraints, but our South Park office is fairly commodious and we'll do our best to get everyone in.

May 25, 2006  ·  04:30 PM   ·  The Lost Night   ·  Comments (0)

Margaret Jenkins' "Slipping Glimpse"

The good news about the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company’s latest show is that it contains some of the best dancing I have ever seen in San Francisco: Heidi Schweiker with her unfailing clarity of shape and intense doll face; Levi Toni with his broad-shouldered dignity; Deborah Miller with her long lines and gentle glamour. The whole company is firing on all pistons for the full 75 minutes of Jenkins’ new “A Slipping Glimpse,” ricocheting through the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum like electrons, phrasing every roll to the floor, every urgent leap into each others’ arms. This is testament to Jenkins’ kaleidoscopic inventiveness as much as the dancers’ commitment. “A Slipping Glimpse,” as longtime Jenkins fans will not be surprised to hear, is formally brilliant. It is also conceptually muddy. And for all the fine dancing on display, it begins to feel relentless.

The work’s title comes from Willem de Kooning, but the work’s key element, four guest dancers, come from Kolkata, India, where last year Jenkins traveled to work with the Tanusree Shankar Dance Company. These dancers use a contemporary amalgam of classical Indian styles, and Jenkins draws subtly and keenly on their vocabulary, the American dancers taking on flexed feet and delicately arrayed fingers while the Indian dancers sculpt their bodies into modern dance shapes. Jenkins is too sophisticated to offer this as an “It’s a Small World” celebration. But just what “A Slipping Glimpse” is saying, either politically or emotionally, is never clear.

Voluminous program notes talk of the work’s “vertiginous moment in history, when it’s often difficult to tell on which side of the looking glass we’re standing—or dancing. Public, private, inside, outside—all such terms seem open to questioning and exploration.” Alexander V. Nichols’ visual design plays on that outside/inside—and on the stunning work he did for Jenkins’ 2004 “Danger Orange.” This time the fractured stage is a huge red diamond, with seating on all four sides, and platforms at the corners and behind the audience.

Sometimes the Indian dancers are on the outside of the square; sometimes the American dancers are; usually it’s far more subtle. Too subtle, or layered with meanings accessible only to Jenkins and her collaborators. Poet Michael Palmer’s narrative interludes were stirring in their own right, but aided my interpretation of the dancing not one whit; evidently text from Eliot Weinberger’s essay “What I Heard about Iraq” was used as choral fragments, but my ear failed to latch onto that. Paul Dresher’s live score gave the dancers swathes of sound, sometimes jazzy and sometimes rock-tinged, enhanced considerably by cellist Joan Jeanrenaud.

What Jenkins is trying to do is evoke timely political and emotional questions in a formalist framework, and it’s fascinating to consider why “Danger Orange” succeeded so well at that and “A Slipping Glimpse” does not. In “Danger Orange” the conceptual hook (the country’s “terror alert” system) was simple; the movement imagery (militaristic crawls, violently clutched throats), clear. With those concrete elements set, our minds felt free to wander and make associations. In “A Slipping Glimpse,” we’re never given the ground rules. Everything remains abstract.

“A Slipping Glimpse” starts with an outdoor prelude in the Yerba Buena Gardens. The night I attended, last Friday, the grass was too wet for the dancers’ safety and the prelude was omitted. Perhaps it is the key to everything. I sort of doubt it. Whether it unlocks the work for you or not, the current company should not be missed. Jenkins’ dancers are more fierce, while the Indian dancers—Debjit Burman, Jaydip Guha, Rahmi Karmakar, and Sulagna Sarkar—are more fleet. They mingle well. “A Slipping Glimpse” continues tonight (Wednesday) through Saturday; for info, click here.

May 24, 2006  ·  10:47 AM   ·  Dance   ·  Comments (0)

Welcome! You’ve arrived at the website of author, arts journalist, book reviewer, and dance critic Rachel Howard (that’s me on the right at eight, in the poufy tutu). Once a steady blog on dance and writing, this website is changing in nature as I focus the rest of this year on finishing a draft of a novel. I’ll be using the site to post more occasional notices on my readings and other events, updates on writing projects, and perhaps some random links to things I like.

Meanwhile, if you’ve come here looking for “The Lost Night,” my memoir about the emotional aftermath of my father’s unsolved murder, you can read the great reviews here, dip into an excerpt here, see what all the people in the book look like in real life here, and check out the readings scheduled for this summer’s paperback release here. And you can always write to me at rachel at rachelhoward dot com.

If you’re a dance fan, you can look through hundreds of reviews and articles I’ve written about dozens of dance companies by using the search box over on the navigation bar. If you’re looking for a Bay Area company, the odds are high I’ve written about them.

Thanks for visiting, and thanks for your patience as I take time out to try some new things with my writing.

May 23, 2006  ·  01:26 PM   ·  Misc.   ·  Comments (0)

No, I'm not returning to full-blown blogging (she doth protest too much?), just popping in to highlight a show flying low under the radar. With so many Bay Area choreographers gaga over arts-funding conditions in Germany, the gutsy San Francisco venue Counterpulse is taking a big risk on bringing Cologne-based choreographer Silke Z here. You might remember Silke Z from her trans-Atlantic work with Jess Curtis, one of the more successful Bay Area choreographers to try his luck in Europe. Silke Z's San Francisco stay begins with two performances of the raucous dance/performance/graffiti/video work "DARE 3" next Sunday and Monday; she'll then spend the next month creating "DARE 5" before unveiling it June 30-July 1. I really have no idea what to expect, but then, that seems appropriate. Check out the postcard below or click here for the Counterpulse site.

May 23, 2006  ·  01:00 PM   ·  Dance   ·  Comments (0)

An early copy of "The Lost Night's" paperback edition arrived the other night, and setting eyes on it for the first time, I was very pleased. You can see the new cover design here, but what you can't tell from a JPeg is the true shade of grey: rich and slightly blue, with a hint of deep green. It's elegant and lovely (and it coordinates handily with the website, no?). And it's in bookstores June 26.

May 20, 2006  ·  09:43 AM   ·  The Lost Night   ·  Comments (0)

SF Ballet 2006 Wrap-up

The San Francisco Ballet season is coming to an end, and I can't help blogging about it.

The season closed with a farewell gala, which I reviewed for the Chronicle:

"Cheers and confetti rained upon the Opera House stage Friday as three of San Francisco Ballet's most beloved male dancers took their final bows there.

Stephen Legate has danced with the company for 15 years, Peter Brandenhoff for 14 and Yuri Possokhov, 12. Possokhov especially has been an artistic force at San Francisco Ballet, lending Russian passion across the repertory, staging "Don Quixote" alongside Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson, and launching his own highly promising choreographic career.

Yet something more than these dancers' collective contributions was being marked as the audience shouted and the red roses flew. Together, these three men are emblematic of the new San Francisco Ballet under Tomasson, who took the reins in 1985, and their departures point to others soon to come. Muriel Maffre, for instance, has talked of retiring for years; her smile at the curtain calls for Jerome Robbins' "In the Night" Friday may have been fueled not just by her exquisite performance alongside Damian Smith, but by the relief -- hers and ours -- that it is not yet her last. An era was passing. But the mood was as celebratory as it was wistful.

"I don't doubt that each and every one of you has special memories of these dancers' performances over the years," Tomasson told the audience, and for the next two hours we relived many of them.

The most gratifying moments were in the small details: Possokhov's open palm and curled fingers as he fled fiery Lorena Feijoo during the tempestuous final pas de deux of "In the Night"; Legate's inimitable tenderness as he cradled Tina LeBlanc to the ground in an excerpt from Lar Lubovitch's "... smile with my heart"; Brandenhoff's insouciant swinging arms as he strutted toward the wings in Hans van Manen's "Solo." "

Details of the 2007 programs will be out any day now. As my review notes, it will be a season of rebuilding, with dancers throughout the ranks making departures, and most likely a pivotal year in the company's development. But 2006 was hardly a holding pattern, which I must admit is what I had expected.

"Swan Lake" proved to be not just a box office hit, but a smashing way to start the season, with the corps dancing strong and three ballerinas leaving distinct stamps on Odette/Odile: Tina LeBlanc sweet and empathic, Lorena Feijoo impeccably stylized, Yuan Yuan Tan elegant and surprisingly tender, my favorite of the three (sadly I missed Kristin Long). Gonzalo Garcia made a strong acting debut as Prince Siegfried, but Tiit Helimets left the most striking impression with his innately noble presence, while thick-muscled Davit Karapetyan showed his lofty jump to far better advantage in contemporary works like Helgi Tomasson's "Chaconne."

As for the mixed rep, Lar Lubovitch's "Elemental Brubeck" emerged as the most flattering of the three premieres created for last summer's Paris engagement, a Cyd Charisse-tinged jaunt whose trajectory was sometimes as loopy as Lubovitch's movement style. But the casts--especially radiant Katita Waldo, Frances Chung, and Gonzalo Garcia in three solos that had certain viewers screaming like girls at a Beatles concert--swung through it with verve.

The all-Jerome Robbins evening should become a season staple. I didn't care for Yuan Yuan Tan as the mirror-entranced girl of "Afternoon of a Faun" (too much of an otherworldly creature, not enough human erotic tension), but soloist Sarah Van Patten was ravishing opposite Moises Martin. Joan Boada charmed in "Other Dances" before an injury took him out of the season, and the corps made the return of "Glass Pieces" anything but pedestrian.

I found Tomasson's new "The Fifth Season" entrancing, and his "Blue Rose" an utter bore. Neither was the season's dancing always inspired: Balanchine's "Rubies" looked rote. And then there was William Forsythe's "Artifact Suite," slapping you awake from nowhere like the work's sudden curtain falls. The corps dancers gave themselves to Forsythe mind, body, and soul. This was a new level of achievement for the company.

Perhaps now I will institute my first-ever "Corps Dancers to Watch":

--Rory Hohenstein (just promoted): Leading-man looks, that gorgeous plastique through the torso, neck, and head. A man among boys in "Elemental Brubeck."

--Courtney Elizabeth: A punchy, go-for-broke dynamism in "Brubeck."

--Brooke Taylor Moore: A tough, solid gal with will to spare and a forceful presence.

And among the soloists, I wish I had come back to the opera house more often to see Nutnaree Pipit-Suksun, with that effortless extension and that supple back. I hope to watch her flourish next year.

May 09, 2006  ·  01:09 PM   ·  Dance   ·  Comments (1)

I've got a short talk with Oakland Ballet founder Ronn Guidi in San Francisco Magazine this month, getting his from-the-gut take on the company's demise. It's not available online, but it's accompanied (or rather, dominated) by an emotionally evocative photo of the puckish Mr. Guidi--well worth flipping to if you see it on a newsstand near you.

May 03, 2006  ·  04:03 PM   ·  Dance   ·  Comments (0)

Welcome! You’ve arrived at the website of author, arts journalist, book reviewer, and dance critic Rachel Howard (that’s me on the right at eight, in the poufy tutu). Once a steady blog on dance and writing, this website is changing in nature as I focus the rest of this year on finishing a draft of a novel. I’ll be using the site to post more occasional notices on my readings and other events, updates on writing projects, and perhaps some random links to things I like.

Meanwhile, if you’ve come here looking for “The Lost Night,” my memoir about the emotional aftermath of my father’s unsolved murder, you can read the great reviews here, dip into an excerpt here, see what all the people in the book look like in real life here, and check out the readings scheduled for this summer’s paperback release here. And you can always write to me at rachel at rachelhoward dot com.

If you’re a dance fan, you can look through hundreds of reviews and articles I’ve written about dozens of dance companies by using the search box over on the navigation bar. If you’re looking for a Bay Area company, the odds are high I’ve written about them.

Thanks for visiting, and thanks for your patience as I take time out to try some new things with my writing.

May 02, 2006  ·  04:53 PM   ·  Misc.   ·  Comments (0)