XXtremes
Palace of Fine
Arts, San Francisco
October 5th,
2013
With a two
week engagement at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts theater, Smuin Ballet
has kicked-off their twentieth anniversary season. The company has never looked
better – the familiar faces are as solid as ever and they have been joined by
some exciting new company members. “XXtremes” is all about contemporary ballet,
a triple bill featuring Amy Seiwert’s “Dear Miss Cline”, Jiří Kylián’s “Return
to a Strange Land” and Michael Smuin’s “Carmina Burana”. “XXtremes” runs until
Saturday – don’t miss your chance to celebrate this important moment in Smuin
Ballet’s history.
A nostalgic
period ballet, “Dear Miss Cline” is choreographer-in-residence Amy Seiwert’s
tribute to the music of Patsy Cline. When it premiered two years ago, it became
an instant fan favorite, though it wasn’t particularly a favorite of mine.
However, this time around, “Dear Miss Cline” was fun and springy; just
delightful. This goes to show that casting really matters. A few of the cast
members were the same as during the world premiere, but the injection of some
new blood was vital. It gave “Dear Miss Cline” a buoyant energy and youthful
presence that was definitely missing two years back. Jonathan Dummar had the
performance of a lifetime on Saturday evening. Whether arabesque, attitude or a
traditional pirouette, his every turn finished up in the turning position
rather than down on the floor. You often talk of dancers soaring in jumps, but
Dummar truly soars in his turns. And though “Dear Miss Cline” is a group piece,
new company member Nicole Haskins shone in her slightly more prominent role.
Terez Dean and Christian Squires in "Dear Miss Cline" by Choreographer in Residence Amy Seiwert Photo credit: David DeSilva |
Jiří Kylián’s
“Return to a Strange Land” is a new work for Smuin Ballet, though it was
originally choreographed in the mid-1970s, two years after the death of
choreographer John Cranko. A work dedicated to Cranko, “Return to a Strange
Land” takes its cast of six through four separate contemporary ballet
movements, each conveying a distinct emotional quality. The first movement was
full of motion and swirling, like getting lost in a sea of information. Next
came a variation full of abandon yet marked by an underlying notion of mature
restraint. The third duet was about falling, punctuated by quick staccato
boureés and last, Kylián created a mirage of living sculpture. Bodies morphed
from one state to another; some images were subtle (a flick of the wrist) and
some were dramatic (the extension of the entire body).
Closing the
“XXtremes” program was Michael Smuin’s 1997 masterpiece “Carmina Burana”. With
2013 being the “The Rite of Spring’s” hundredth anniversary, dance patrons have
certainly been treated to their fair share of ritualistic drama over the course
of this year. “Carmina Burana” is something different altogether, but there is that
sense of hypnotic ritual to it, with the presence of the crowd and the chosen
one. Smuin’s “Carmina Burana” definitely has a strong narrative (more so than
many of his lyrical ballet works), but the real triumph with this piece is how Smuin
married the complex score with appropriately complex movement. And
performance-wise, the men’s trio (Ben Needham-Wood, Aidan DeYoung and Eduardo
Permuy) stole the show – their unison was otherworldly.
While
“XXtremes” brought together three diverse choreographic works, there were some
problems with structure and repertory choice. First was the program order. Smuin’s
“Carmina Burana” is an epic piece, quite long and with a dynamic level doesn’t
vary that much. It would have made more sense for it to open the program rather
than close it. Second, each ballet featured in “XXtremes” had a similar
compositional form. All three were made up of smaller scenes/vignettes, each
with their own defined beginning and ending. On its own, this structure is
tricky; small individual snippets can make it difficult to maintain forward
momentum and choreographic continuity. It can feel too much like a ‘stop and
go’ experience, and not enough like a comprehensive work. However, this type of
formal structure can also be completely successful. The issue here was not the
individual variation style but that every piece on the “XXtremes” program had
this characteristic. When celebrating the breadth of a ballet company, at least
one of the repertory choices might have reflected a different formal structure.
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