Rising from the Ashes

“Jewels of the Bay”
Oakland Ballet Company
Holy Names College
Oakland, California
October 16, 2009 

by Rita Felciano
Copyright © Rita Felciano, 2009

The San Francisco Fire Department proudly displays the phoenix on its official medallion. They really should loan this symbol of resurrecting yourself from the ashes to the Oakland Ballet Company who with three performances of “Jewels of the Bay,” last weekend made its latest attempt to come to back to life.

After founding Artistic Director Ronn Guidi retired in 1999 and interim Artistic Director Joralle Smalle held the fort until 2003 when Artistic Director Karen Brown tried to revamp the company until 2006 and Guidi returned in 2007 to resign somewhat inexplicably in April of 2009, audiences and dancers have never stopped lamenting the demise of an institution that has been integral to the Bay Area’s cultural life since the sixties.

This latest attempt to give the East Bay back what so many feel it deserves had much going for itself. For one thing, there were the dancers. Ballet dancers, from freelancers (Ikolo Griffin), former Oakland company members, current and former dancers with Smuin Ballet (Erin Yarbrough-Stewart, Aaron Thayer), Ballet San Jose (Amy Briones) and Sacramento Ballet (Nikki Trerise White) pitched in. The choreographers offered their works royalty-free. Except for Amy Seiwert’s “Revealing the Bridge”, the pieces from Alonzo King, Val Caniparoli, Carlos Carvajal and Michael Lowe, had been part of Oakland’s repertoire. The opening night, in addition to long-time supporters brought in new, young audiences who at times seemed surprised at just how varied ballet can be. The stage of Holy Names’ University’s 300 seats Valley Center for the Arts was tiny, but seeing the dancers so close up brought its own rewards.

The company also has a functioning board of directors, some in the bank, including $200,000 grant from the Bank of America, and Joral and Denise Smalle have taken the reins of Guidi’s Oakland Ballet Academy.

While the search for a permanent artistic director goes on, company alumni Guest Artistic Directors Michael Lowe and Jeanna McClintock are running the company. Despite the clear evidence of insufficient rehearsal time they did a very creditable job in putting this “Jewels” program together.

Oakland Ballet made its national reputation with its reconstructions of Diaghilev and Americana repertoire. (The primary reason, apparently that Guidi, at age 72, had come out of retirement in 2007 was that he wanted to bring back some of the Diaghilev repertoire for the Ballets Russes centenary.) But Oakland Ballet was also enormously influential in showcasing local choreographers. It was on this aspect of Oakland’s history that Lowe and McClintock put the spotlight in this comeback program. Two ensemble pieces, Caniparoli’s 1980 “Street Songs” and Lowe’s 2003 “Double Happiness,” bracketed Pas de Deux by Seiwert, Alonzo King and Carlos Carvajal.

“Street Songs” is very early Caniparoli but it already displays this choreographer’s knack for dance-friendly music and his deftness in delineating easy-go relationships. In this particular case he focused the piece on what looked liked cavorting, newly hormone-conscious junior high kids. He put them in Mondrian-inspired unitards and got them going in choreography that took good advantage of Carl Orff and Gunild Keeetman’s clickety-clack percussive score. They chased each other, the men showed off their muscles, they paired off and stuck together as group. They also shuffled and jugged anxious to be released from constraints but perfectly happy in their togetherness. Griffin, not as clean in his lines as he has been, was the much adored, much put upon most popular kid in class.

Lowe’s “Happiness”, set to a pleasing original score (heard on tape like all the other music) by Melody of China, an Oakland-based Chinese orchestra, had Mariko Takahashi and Gabriel Williams reprise their original ‘Gold Rush Folk’ roles. The spunky humor of this charming courting duet between a cowboy and a perhaps innocent young woman needed verve and timing. It got both. Erin Yarbrough-Stewart and Ethan White’s were the more romantic, more classically elegant second couple that had the misfortune of having to perform in the context of the badly under-rehearsed female splashing fishes. Briones’ whipping turns and huge smile enlivened the finale.

 Yarbrough-Stewart and Aaron Thayer beautifully performed Seiwert’s “Revealing” despite Michael Nyman’s innocuous score. They managed to keep an emotional connection going even though the work looked like an exercise in extreme partnering. How smoothly can I get the woman from a swallow perch into a fish dive and build variations on that? is the question Seiwert seems to have asked herself.

 Ethan White and Nikki Trerise White excellent performance did more than honor Alonzo King’s stretchy “Love Dog.” Less angular and fractured than other King works, the two dancers circled and pulled each other like so much taffy with none of the sweetness implied. When Trerise White arched her pulled up back, her hips blossomed into a huge bustle, the most erotic image seen all night.

Despite the classical wedding accoutrements of white and gold, large tutu included, there was nothing grandiose or imperial about Carvajal’s ‘Wedding Pas de Deux’ from his 1977 “Crystal Slipper.”  Griffin and McClintock were young lovers who turned around each other, completely self-absorbed and very much in tune with Bohuslav Martinu’s lovely melodic music.

It will be an uphill battle to get the Oakland Ballet Company back on its dancing feet but given the performers’ evident commitment and the audience’s enthusiasm, they just might bring it off. It wouldn’t be the first time.