"Silver Celebration"
San Francisco Ballet
War Memorial Opera House
San Francisco, CA
January 20, 2010
by Rita Felciano
copyright © Rita Felciano, 2010
No amount of wonderful dancing can instill into choreography a life that isn’t there. Dancers are only as good as the material with which they are working.This platitude was highlighted in SFB’s recent Gala, focused on Helgi Tomasson’s 25th anniversary with the company. Tomasson is a great artistic director who has done wonders bringing good dancers and choreographers to the ensemble. During that period he also choreographed forty works for the company, a remarkable achievement in terms of sheer workload. But at the Gala—two-thirds of which was dedicated to mostly excerpts from his work for SFB--humdrum choreography contributed little to a festive spirit. It made ultimately for a long evening that towards the end really began to drag.
Since they offer the opportunity to showcase individual dancers, pas de deux’s are the perhaps necessary backbone of every Gala. But often they also contain some kind of distillation of a choreographer’s ideas and put you back in touch with works that you might want to see again—or not.
Tomasson’s
turgid duet from “Tuning Game”, introduced new Brazilian Principal Vitor Luiz
who countered every one of Lorena Feijoo’s steamy come-hither and get-thee-gone
moves. Luiz looks like an athletically strong technician with a flair for
drama; together the dancers sizzled but they couldn’t heat up the choreography.
I remembered Tomasson’s “The Fifth Season” as relentlessly dreary and bone dry.
In the excerpt, Damian Smith and Yuan Yuan Tan looked liked two people
condemned to stay together. Through her phrasing, earlier in the evening, Tan
valiantly tried to inject some modicum of life—even some wit--into her solo
(with four men) from “Chi-Lin.”
Two
Baroque composers inspired Tomasson to works whose return would be welcome. The
charming “Chaconne for Piano and Two Dancers”, to Handel beautifully played by
Roy Bogas, featured a lovely, relaxed Vanessa Zahorian in a billowing give and
take duet with Davit Karapetyan. In the intensely musical Pas de Deux from “7
for Eight” (to Bach), you could see the steel inside the softness inside Nutnaree Pipit-Suksun though she
repeatedly surrendered cat-like to the gentlemanly Pierre-Francois Vilanoba.
Also using baroque music (Francesco Geminiani after Corelli) was Tomasson’s
“Concerto Grosso” for a quintet of men, led by a not-quite in top form Pascal
Molat. But you couldn’t blame young Diego Cruz for grinning through his leaps.
“Grosso’s” brio was and is irresistible.
Excellent
performances of excellent duets were given by Sarah Van Patten and Vilanoba in
‘The Man I Love’ from “Who Cares.” One of my favorite memories goes back to
Sabina Allemann and Ashley Wheater whose awareness of their romance made the
duet even more romantic. Van Patten, holding back and yet so eager to yield,
looked wonderfully alive. Maria Kochetkova and Joan Boada’s Balcony pas de deux
from Tomasson’s “Romeo and Juliet” served as an appetizer for the work’s
reprise at the end of this season. Prokofiev did a lot of his work for him but
Tomasson finely built the momentum of the ballet’s central moment. Lovely to
see was how Boada’s impetuousness pulled Kochetkova out of her reserve. But at
the end, she was the one who more deeply realized the consequences of that
kiss.
In
the urgency with which they met each other’s demands in Christopher Wheeldon’s
lushly athletic duet from “Rush”, Katita Waldo and Smith functioned like single
organism. Interlocking limbs and pulling apart, they found room for each other.
Their snaking, stretching and yanking limbs arms were a marvel to behold. When
Waldo scooped hers into U-shape, they carried the air as it if were a pillow.
Anthony
Spaulding danced his first Pas de Deux from “Agon.” Partnered by a surprisingly
indecisive Sofiane Sylve, it was not an auspicious debut. Martin West’s
lugubrious take on the score didn’t help. Gennady Nedvigin, a fine classicist,
danced the ‘Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy’ from "Company B” without much
conviction. Why the minuscule, idea-less Pas de Trois from Tomasson’s “On
Common Ground” was included in this Gala, remains a mystery. In the Pas de Six
from “The Sleeping Beauty” newly appointed Principal Frances Chung’s filigree
footwork shone in the Gold Fairy’s variation. Debuting as fine cavaliers were
Hansuke Yamamoto and, fresh from the SFB school. corps member Steven Morse who
engraved his ballon in the air.
The Gala opened with a so-so performance of ‘The Typewriter’ section from Mark Morris’ “The Sandpaper Ballet”. The ‘Mistake Waltz’ from Robbins “The Concert” sent everyone smiling into intermission. The evening closed on a more somber note, the all-male ‘Winter,’ the best section of Tomasson’s “Le Quattro Stagioni” to the Vivaldi score. Taras Domitro was the leader of this stark celebration of male bonding. The contrast between Domitro’s fierce athleticism and the men’s folk-inflected group steps set up an intriguing tension about a male community that seemed to exist in isolation.
Katita Waldo and Damian Smith in Wheeldon's "Rush"Photo: © Erik Tomasson