I reviewed programs six and seven for the San Francisco Classical Voice:

“Wayne McGregor’s Chroma made a sensation when it premiered at England’s Royal Ballet in 2006: ticket lines down the block, a swift appointment of McGregor to choreographer in residence, a sudden clamor by companies around the world to commission his dances. But Chroma is making a more tepid impact in its premiere performances at San Francisco Ballet, at least to judge from my own reaction and the audience temperature at Saturday’s matinee.

Perhaps that’s because McGregor’s movement is less startling on SFB’s gutsy, go-for-broke dancers than on those of the far more conservative Royal, whose style is typically controlled, gracious, polite. True, McGregor’s movement is still extreme in any context: Raised on European modern dance, he favors sharp, splayed legs; violent head-jutting; and squiggling spines. He has a special fetish for the feet together in fifth position, the knees bent in plié so that the thighs spread, the back arched so that the butt sticks out. The swift and energetic San Francisco dancers devour such a vocabulary. And yet in Chroma it doesn’t seem put to much meaningful use.

The most interesting elements of the work are its sets and costumes — a bright white room, with a huge cut-out rectangle on the back wall about two feet off the floor, and unisex camisoles and underwear of subtly varying shades of white (slightly green-tinged, slightly pink).”

Click here to keep reading.

Add Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.