San Francisco Ballet
Program 7
War Memorial Opera
House, San Francisco
April 16th,
2015
Mixed repertory nights
are sometimes constructed around a theme – maybe works by the same
choreographer, of the same era, to the same composer or of a particular genre.
And just as often, there is no unifying motif; the program is simply a
combination of different dances. But there is also a third category. One where
a common through line exists but is less obvious. San Francisco Ballet’s seventh
program is a perfect example of this. The theme of the night was design, with
each piece speaking equally of vast visual scope and intimate visual
intricacies.
The triple bill opened
with a reprise of 2014’s Caprice, choreographed
by Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson and set to a diverse Saint-Saƫns score. As
exquisite columns of light adjust and shift to frame each of the ballet’s five
movements, Tomasson’s Caprice is all
about elegance. In the first sequence, Mathilde Froustey and Vitor Luiz’s
series of arabesque lifts floated through space with regal splendor. Chapter
two brought some stunning but telling double cabrioles by Sarah Van Patten and
featured the most lovely stage exit. As Tiit Helimets carried Van Patten into
the second wing stage left, Daniel Deivison-Oliveira and Sean Orza knelt down,
arms outstretched, faces lifted upwards. Van Patten and Helimets returned in
the third movement with an unexpected duet full of split lifts and upper body
curves. While Caprice really shone in
these featured duets, the corps struggled with unison on Thursday evening. The
elegance of Caprice requires clarity
and because the unison was off, that clarity was compromised.
An iconic work of
neo-classical brilliance, George Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments continued program seven’s design-based theme
by exploring the physical possibilities within classical ballet vocabulary.
From the opening themes to the final Choleric variation, Balanchine creates
physical architecture in this masterwork. Examining the shapes that can be
made, the images sculpted, the surprising steps (bent leg work on pointe, a vast
presence of second position, flexed hands, hips and shoulders that are no
longer square). Even today, almost seventy years after the work premiered, The Four Temperaments still pushes
boundaries and seeks to understand what ballet can do and what ballet can look
like.
Pictured: San Francisco Ballet in Possokhov's Swimmer Photo © Erik Tomasson |
Onto the only world
premiere and the most designed dance of the evening, Yuri Possokhov’s Swimmer. A solo trumpet sang from the
orchestra pit, a see through screen revealed a mid-century modern domestic
scene and almost immediately, the scrim came alive with video (by Kate
Duhamel). From that moment on, the choreography and the interactive videography
worked in tandem to communicate a deep narrative – one character’s clash with
circumstance and his journey through the reality of responsibility and the fantasy
of youth. There was much to love about Possokhov’s Swimmer. Duhamel’s video design was used to connect the various
segments, which gave an overall feeling of continuous motion. Choreographically,
the quiet pas de deux between Sofiane Sylve and Luke Ingham was a statement of
gorgeous nostalgia. The powerful men’s variation towards the end of the ballet drew
audible gasps from the audience, and of course, Vitor Luiz gave a
transformative performance as the central character. In modern dance, there is
a lot of discussion about the genre of dance theater. It’s super trendy and
happens everywhere in the contemporary scene. Possokhov’s Swimmer is not dance theater, but a wonderful model of something
even rarer – ballet theater.
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