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Halfway through the EDF Version 31

San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival
“Return of the Sun”
Palace of Fine Arts
San Francisco, CA
June 6 and 13, 2009
by Rita Felciano

copyright © Rita Felciano, 2009

At midpoint of this year’s San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, the crowds were perhaps a little smaller but as enthusiastically supportive of these artists as ever. The Festival format—a two-hour show of soloists and groups who embody cultures from around the globe—has proven itself. Still this love feast and way to honor the mythologies and customs of what used to be, and probably no longer are, rural cultures has evolved.

The Pleasure of Limitations

Joe Goode Performance Group
“Falling Inward”
 Oliver Ranch
Geyserville, CA
May 16, 2009

by Rita Felciano
Copyright © Rita Felciano, 2009

Nestled among the golden hills of Northern California, and at first barely visible through the canopy of gnarled California oaks, Ann Hamilton’s Tower, a 2007 commission by art collector Steven Oliver, resembles the beacons of defense that dot lonely landscapes from Central Asia to the Scottish highlands. Eight stories high, with slits that pass for windows, it’s a forbidding structure that tells you to stay away. But as you enter—actually you have to crawl in—it opens into an elegant wall-hugging spiral staircase that invites a climb towards the oculus open to the sky. This powerful, yet vertically challenging space inspired Joe Goode’s translucent ”Falling Inward,” one of his gentle musings on living and the uncertainties that come from it.

Two Oldies and A New One

Paul Taylor Dance Company
“…Byzantium,” “Beloved Renegade,” “Private Domain”
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
San Francisco, CA
April 29-May 3, 2009

by Rita Felciano
copyright © Rita Felciano, 2009

The same day that the Paul Taylor Dance Company opened three different triple bills, its presenter, San Francisco Performances, announced its 2009/10 season: there won’t be any Taylor next year. Without trying to be ungracious—after all they recently sponsored extended engagements for five consecutive years—that was hard to swallow. It was also the only negative note in an otherwise truly special dance watching experience. Three of the nine works stood out for revealing particular reasons for Taylor’s prodigious staying power.

Fusion from Fission

San Francisco Ballet
Program VIII
“Fusion,” “Russian Seasons,” Double Evil”
War Memorial Opera House
San Francisco, CA
April 28, 2009

by Rita Felciano
copyright © Rita Felciano, 2009

Three well-performed works, which attempted to house contradictory elements under one roof, closed this year’s San Francisco Ballet Season. Not surprisingly, these essays in co-habitation yielded different perspectives. The three ballets also made up the most contemporary SFB repertory program in quite some time. Yuri Possokhov’s “Fusion” and Jorma Elo’s “Double Evil” were part of last year’s 75th Anniversary New Works commissions; Alexei Ratmansky choreographed “Russian Seasons” for New York City Ballet’s 2006 Diamond Project.  Interestingly, all three choreographers also worked with music drawn from disparate sources.

Precious Gemstones

San Francisco Ballet
Program VII
“Jewels”
War Memorial Opera House
San Francisco, CA
April 26, 2009

by Rita Felciano
Copyright © Rita Felciano, 2009

There is little question that watching a master choreographer put a new work on stage, is the most desirable way to see it. Encountering it later, however, keeps the eye (and heart) from being clouded by that first edenic experience. San Francisco Ballet premiered Balanchine’s “Jewels” in 2002; that was thirty-five years after its birth. I don’t know what that first experience in 1967 must have been like. But as staged by Elyse Bourne, and additionally coached by Violette Verdy, Mimi Paul and Suzanne Farrell, SFB interpreted “Jewels” as beautifully as you would want.

A Gallic Touch to Vivaldi

Ballet Preljocaj
“Les 4 Saisons”
Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts
University of California Davis
Davis, CA
April 18. 2009

by Rita Felciano
Copyright © Rita Felciano, 2009

Angelin Preljocaj could make bags of sponges, coiled ropes, strings of pearls or unkempt bushes dance. As a matter of fact he did in his witty and ever so delightful “Les 4 Saisons.” He set this sturdily danced yet whimsical ninety-minute work to one of Western music’s most popular scores, Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons.” And the subject of this flight of fancy? Not so much the predictable cycle of the seasons but their less predictable weather patterns. Still, you couldn’t miss the cool spring days, sultry summer afternoons, brisk fall breezes and shiveringly cold winter. This gently humorous piece comes from a choreographer who is better known for edgy probes of our most hidden desires and unacknowledged fears. Most amazingly, Preljocaj succeeds in making us hear Vivaldi’s evergreen with new ears.

Revisiting Diaghilev

Compagnie Marie Chouinard
“Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun”, “The Rite of Spring”
Novellus Theater Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
San Francisco, CA
April 10, 2009

By Rita Felciano
copyright © Rita Felciano, 2009

In their first appearance in San Francisco in the fall of 2005, Marie Chouinard's dancers hit the stage like a gender-neutral attack force of Amazonian warriors. The very least one could say of “Le Cri du Monde” and “24 Preludes by Chopin” is that their choreographer had a clear vision of what she wanted. Both pieces had been choreographed at the turn of the century. This most recent concert, which showcased earlier works-- “Afternoon of a Faun” from 1994 and “The Rite of Spring” from 1993--had one piece of very good news: Chouinard has gotten better at what she is doing. In the later works the combination of a high degree of formality with what looks like unrestrained physical and emotional energy has become suppler. Still the earlier works had something going for themselves.

Helgi Tomasson at Twenty-five

San Francisco Ballet
“2010 Repertory Season”
April 9, 2009

by Rita Felciano
copyright © Rita Felciano, 2009

Though 2010 will be Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson’s 25th season with the San Francisco Ballet, the announced program seems to underplay this milestone. There will be no new Tomasson choreography this coming year. Instead, the eight programs will be bracketed by two of his full-lengths creations. His new-this -year “Swan Lake” will open the season on January 23, 2010, the 1994 “Romeo and Juliet” will close it on May 8.

Two out of Three

San Francisco Ballet
Program VI
“Stravinsky Violin Concerto”, Within the Golden Hour”
“West Side Story Suite”
War Memorial Opera House
San Francisco, CA
April 3, 2009

by Rita Felciano
copyright © Rita Felciano, 2009

Great dancing and good choreography can’t be beat. They will always communicate. Though Robbins “West Side Story Suite” is one of his lesser, perhaps even forgettable works, Balanchine’s “Stravinsky Violin Concerto” and “Within the Golden Hour”, Christopher Wheeldon’s New Works commission from SFB 75th anniversary program last year, compensated for Program VI's ballet lite ending. Whether intended or not, the Wheeldon also curiously complemented the Balanchine. And it was so gratifying to see an audience respond to quality when it was in front of them. The Robbins received its whoops and hollers but it was Balanchine and Wheeldon who elicited unanimous thunderous applause.

Kleist was Right

“The Return of Ulysses”
Pacific Operaworks and Handspring Puppet Company
Project Artaud Theater
San Francisco, CA
March 24, 2009

by Rita Felciano
copyright © Rita Felciano, 2009

Puppets have a long tradition in dance whether they partner live performers in popular and ritual celebrations around the globe or are impersonated in ballets such “Coppelia,” The Nutcracker,” “Petrouchka”, “La boutique fantasque” and its precursor “Die Puppenfee” And who can forget the blow-up doll in DV8 Physical Theater’s “Enter Achilles?” The tension between the inanimate and the live body is one that seems to fascinate universally. A performance by Seattle’s Pacific Operaworks and Cape Town’s Handspring Puppet Company of Monteverdi’s “The Return of Ulysses” brought the topic to mind again, particularly as it relates to Heinrich von Kleist’s “On the Marionette Theater.” The Monteverdi opera was presented by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in conjunction with an exhibition of the oeuvre of South African artist William Kentridge who directed and designed the production.