"The Four Temperaments," "Joyride," "Within the Golden Hour"
San Francisco Ballet
Opera House
J.F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
November 25, 2008
by Alexandra Tomalonis
copyright 2008 by Alexandra Tomalonis
San Francisco Ballet doesn't play Washington very often, and that's a pity. It's the nation's oldest ballet company (75 years and counting), but under the direction of Helgi Tomasson, it's developed a very young, contemporary profile without disregarding or compromising its classical values. Tomasson has been at least as successful at encouraging, and acquiring, watchable new choreography as anyone; he's a master a developing and casting dancers; and he knows how to program. Tuesday night's well-attended opening was a mix of one 20th century masterpiece and two works by major contemporary choreographers new last year.
Perhaps most importantly, SFB has developed a voice, a point of view, that's rare in American companies today. The actual style of classical dancing is rather generic, but there's an attitude, a sophistication, and a European gloss (perhaps because so many of the soloists and principals are European or European-trained) that differentiate it from others. This was most clearly shown opening night in SFB's mellow, polished rendition of Balanchine's "The Four Temperaments." There were no extremes, which meant no hard edge (though that's gone in New York now as well), and it was wonderful to see a Choleric (Sofiane Sylve) who was high-spirited, and perhaps unmatable, but not murderous; and a Phlegmatic (Pierre-Francois Vilanoba) with such a sensitive musicality and way of unfurling his limbs, languid and solipsistic. I wished for more melancholy from Taras Domitro's Melancholic, but Vanessa Zahorian and Joan Boada danced Sanguinic with real zest, and the three Theme couples, and corps, danced with exceptional clarity.
The company brought two of its hits from last spring's festival of new choreography: Mark Morris's "Joyride" and Christopher Wheeldon's "Within the Golden Hour." I much preferred the Wheeldon. It's the most confident piece I've yet seen from him, and was far from "Polyhymnia" and its cousins. Set for three leading, and four supporting, couples to music by contemporary composer Ezio Bosso with a splash of Vivaldi tossed in, the work is about the music, but also about lines -- lines stretched, then broken, always within a context of gently whirling movements, masterfully connected. There's a playfulness in the music that is echoed by the dancing; it's a light work, with a dreamlike watery quality. The costumes, mostly blues and greens, and movable panels in golden beige raised and lowered throughout the piece (scenic and costume designs by Martin Pakledinaz) and James F. Ingalls' dreamy lighting help create the mood.
The ballet's center are three pas de deux, each with a different flavor, though the dancers were not individually characterized. Wheeldon seems to see men and women as inseparable units (the exception is a short duo for two men dancing as friendly antagonists), and he spins out lift after lift, both gentle and dazzling. "Within the Golden Hour" is engaging and beautiful, and could be only that but for its stunning ending, where the dancers, without warning, are drawn into a vortex, form a tight circle, and spin as if becoming, or being caught in, a machine.
"Joyride", for four couples, set to a John Adams' score, lives up to its name. It's joyous, near nonstop movement. There are references and reminders of Jerome Robbins in it, whiffs of "West Side Story" (the Dance at the Gym) and the purposeful walking of "Glass Pieces." The opening section, the dancers used as an ensemble, felt long to me, and repetitive, something I very rarely think about a Mark Morris work. The walks in "Glass Pieces" are ingenious, turning into dancing before you quite see it, but the ensemble dances here were well-crafted filler, rather overwhelmed by the brassy, pulsing score. Not so the solos and pas de deux. The dancers, dressed in Izaac Muzrahi's gold and silver metallic Next New Age work out togs (with little screens flashing numbers on their chests), are given a work out, which they attacked with a sweet zest. Some variations used moves taken from the gym, others were standard ballet steps, with an emphasis on pirouettes, but they were put together with a sense of endless invention and sophistication. Morris, a modern dance choreographer who works frequently with ballet dancers, gives the SFB dancers a sense of modern dance weight and happily marries it to a delight in balletic virtuosity.
Both the Morris and the Wheeldon have a seriousness of purpose, as well as a level of craft and imagination, that separate them from much other contemporary choreography, but there's still something that the 1946 "The Four Temperaments" has that both "Joyride" and "Within the Golden Hour" lack. Neither Morris nor Wheeldon have brought out, or created, the personality of the dancers, who come out for their bows, and one thinks, "Oh, that was X, Y and Z!" Able anonymous dancers are suddenly people. But their dancing (and what they're given to dance) should tell us who they are, without doubt, and the substitution of one dancer for another should give another shade of meaning to a work. That's what's missing from contemporary choreography, and what all past masters, from Bournonville/Perrot/Petipa through Ashton and Balanchine, were able to do every time they went into the studio, in great works and small.
All photos by Erik Tomasson. From top:
Vanessa Zahorian and Joan Boada in Balanchine's The Four Temperaments.
San Francisco Ballet in Morris' Joyride.
Maria Kochetkova and Joan Boada in Wheeldon's Within The Golden Hour.
