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My look back at the year in Bay Area dance for the San Francisco Chronicle is now online. In addition to a Top 10, the Chronicle asks its critics to choose a High, Low, Most Improved, and Most Valuable Player. My picks:
"HIGH: Gonzalo Garcia farewell performance: War Memorial Opera House (May). Fans of this irresistibly warmhearted San Francisco Ballet dancer knew saying goodbye would be emotional, but we could never have expected a leave-taking like his "Don Quixote." When partner Tina LeBlanc came down hard on a jump and couldn't stand, Garcia gallantly carried her off the stage. Fellow principals Molly Smolen and Tiit Helimets filled in for Act 2, while Vanessa Zahorian rushed across town to dance with Garcia for Act 3. At curtain call, Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson looked choked up, and LeBlanc stood in a leg brace applauding. The triple cast, the palpable concern and affection in the audience for LeBlanc when she fell, Garcia's high-flying bravura - it was the kind of night at the ballet that you never forget. Another tear-jerker: the retirement of the Ballet's incomparable Muriel Maffre (who has since resurfaced guesting with Lines Ballet) just days later.
LOW: The sudden death in April of ballet showman and former San Francisco Ballet co-director Michael Smuin saddened dedicated fans and detractors alike. Fortunately, the Smuin Ballet lives on under his right-hand woman, Celia Fushille-Burke.
MOST IMPROVED: The term "service organization" sounds too bland to describe the revitalized Dancers Group. Again under the leadership of Wayne Hazzard, Dancers Group has surged as a rallying force in the dance community, not only providing fiscal sponsorship (i.e., a nonprofit umbrella) to dozens of local companies but also organizing festivals, collaborating on a statewide initiative to promote dance on the Web and revamping its monthly newsletter, InDance (full disclosure: I am an occasional contributor). The upshot for dance lovers? Check out the comprehensive performance listings at www.dancersgroup.org and you will discover a Bay Area dance scene more lively and diverse than you probably ever imagined.
MOST VALUABLE PLAYER: Now in his fifth year as director of ODC Theater, Rob Bailis is hitting his stride as a presenter, nurturing fresh local talent and bringing in exciting companies from New York and beyond. His taste is smart and sophisticated, his empathy for artists is instinctive and his enthusiasm is infectious. Look for him to make an even bigger splash with a series of major festivals at Project Artaud Theater as ODC Theater temporarily closes fora major rebuilding and expansion in 2008."
Winnowing down a Top 10 was far more difficult this year than last. Other high points that vied for inclusion: Miami City Ballet dancing Twyla Tharp's "In the Upper Room," Spain's Andres Pena in a searing solo with Yaelisa's Caminos Flamencos, next-generation Butoh maverick Shinichi Iova-Koga in his solo "milk traces," and San Francisco Ballet in Balanchine's "Divertimento No. 15."
To find out who did make the Top 10, click here.
My colleague Allan Ulrich has put together his own highly informed Top 10 for Voice of Dance, sending well-earned kudos to Counterpulse executive director Jessica Robinson. To check out Allan's highlights, click here.
December 28, 2007 · 11:16 AM · Dance · Comments (0)
Catching up after travels. The San Francisco Ballet "Nutcracker" is underway, and I reviewed Maria Kotchekova's delightful debut in in for the Chronicle:
"News flash for you lingering holiday dance Grinches: The fusty, old San Francisco Ballet "Nutcracker" you remember from Christmases past is long gone. In its place since 2004 is a sparkling still-new miracle: one of the most beautiful "Nutcrackers" on the planet.
If you're just discovering this, you will not be alone. On the eve of the company's 75th anniversary, San Francisco Ballet's "Nutcracker" is going global. A "digicast" of Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson's sumptuous staging will soon be screened in more than 70 theaters throughout North America and Europe, and this year's performances are being filmed for broadcast next winter on PBS.
At Thursday night's opening, cameras weren't yet rolling, but everything looked ready for its close-up. Flower maidens waltzed with extra lilt, the snow scene's confetti flakes came down in a blizzard, and Tchaikovsky's eternal score sounded supremely sprightly under Music Director Martin West's baton. There were surprises to fuel little-girl ballerina dreams and grown-up balletomane ravings alike, and sometimes - especially in the sensational debut of the new Russian-trained principal Maria Kochetkova - both at once.
Kochetkova, a 23-year-old recruit from the English National Ballet, is tiny and light, a sparrow. In the closing Grand Pas de Deux, she seemed hardly to touch the floor, and when she leapt toward her Nutcracker cavalier, Davit Karapetyan, for a diabolically difficult shoulder-sit, she landed as though she'd simply flitted to a fresh branch."
Click here for the full review.
And just when you thought nothing more could be said about Mark Morris's "The Hard Nut"--well, at least I tried:
"There are three certainties in American life - death, taxes and "Nutcracker" - and more than 15 years ago, Mark Morris took the sting out of one of them, replacing sugarplum sweetness with a raunchy 1960s suburbia house party, Dairy Queen-hatted snowflakes and friskily fertile, splay-legged waltzing flowers. No wonder then that "The Hard Nut," which had premiered in Brussels, quickly became a hit and a nearly annual ritual in this country. But as the years pile on and "The Hard Nut" becomes more familiar, the question builds: Can an antidote to the "Nutcracker" as cod-liver-oil tradition avoid becoming cod liver oil itself?
The answer, it turned out Friday at UC Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall, is yes. The Mark Morris Dance Group is no stranger to Cal Performances in this production - they've danced it here for eight of the past 11 years - and many in the opening-night audience (including this critic) had seen it three or more times. Yet the laughs were fresh and frequent. If, like many arts fans in the Bay Area, you've been there, done that and wonder if it's worth seeing "The Hard Nut" again before the run ends Sunday, let my smile-weary face answer affirmative.
The reasons why the show still tickles might seem obvious. Does anyone need it explained why a Christmas cocktail hour that features a polyester tree, a TV fireplace and a teenage daughter who can hardly keep from dry-humping the drunken guests is funny? Surely no other choreographer has mined Tchaikovsky for as many punch lines, and they speak for themselves, from the groovy Afro with hair pick firmly ensconced to the sideburn-laden hipster (Morris himself in an often scene-stealing walk-on) who returns from the loo with toilet paper attached to his pimp-height heels.
But the real reason "The Hard Nut" never loses its laughs runs far deeper than sight gags, and it has to do with Morris' musicality. In "The Hard Nut," his response to Tchaikovsky is often so simple that it's deep. Almost every movement is both parody and tribute to the score. I can't tell you why the way the waltzing flowers slump is funny - to understand that, you would have to see it, and the way the posture both captures and mocks the brooding swirl of emotions in the strident chords. I can't fully explain why Morris' most common comedic tack, note-for-note mockery, is a crackup: To get it you would have to see Craig Biesecker, as Drosselmeier, bouncing the Nutcracker doll dutifully along to every lilt in Tchaikovsky's melody, affectionately revealing its near-inanity."
Click herefor the full Chronicle review.
December 18, 2007 · 11:16 AM · Dance · Comments (0)
I reviewed Margaret Jenkins' newest for today's Chronicle:
"In the inevitable ebb and flow of a long, rich dance-making career, Margaret Jenkins is reaching high tide. She just finished a piece to premiere as part of San Francisco Ballet's New Works Festival in the spring, and 2006's blockbuster "A Slipping Glimpse" - created in collaboration with dancers in India - recently wrapped an acclaimed nationwide tour.
With the grande dame of Bay Area modern dance so busy, perhaps no one should feel surprised that "Other Suns," unveiled Thursday at Project Artaud Theater, feels like a minor event. It isn't that Jenkins' latest, which the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company continues performing through Sunday, seems rushed into the world or unfinished. It just might take a while to see quite where "Other Suns" fits within the Jenkins oeuvre.
Partly, that's intentional. Clocking in at only 45 intermissionless minutes, "Other Suns" is billed as the first part of a trilogy to be completed in 2009. The inspiration, Jenkins says, arose from a past residency in China, and parts 2 and 3 will be created with the Guangdong Modern Dance Company of Guangzhou. As with most Jenkins works, though, "Other Suns" is so abstract that the specific cultural reference seems incidental. Aside from the Asian influences in the music of Bun-Ching Lam (the rest of the soundtrack is by Paul Dresher), there is nothing recognizably Chinese here.
Instead, this will probably be remembered as "the Jenkins piece with the water," though water is just one element of the arresting visual design by longtime Jenkins collaborator Alexander V. Nichols. "
Click here to read the full review.
December 08, 2007 · 01:45 PM · Dance · Comments (0)
Memo to the Bay Area Dance Community
It's that time of year when the Chronicle asks me to look back on 2007, and ahead to 2008. I'm just starting to assemble a "forecast" of dance events in the first half of 2008, to appear in the Chronicle's Pink section next month. If you've got a dance event coming up and you'd like me to consider it for this preview, please send me details. What, when, where, and a quick description of what you're up to will suffice. Please email information to rachel at rachel howard dot com within the next week and a half. Thanks very much!
December 04, 2007 · 05:20 PM · Dance · Comments (0)
