Smuin, Contemporary
American Ballet
Dance Series 01
Palace of Fine Arts, San
Francisco
October 6th,
2017
The first notes of
Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings in C
echoed through the Palace of Fine Arts Theater – a famous music selection in
concert dance, the score for George Balanchine’s timeless Serenade. Though here, this familiar musical opening was ushering
in something different, Garrett Ammon’s Serenade
for Strings, brought to life by the dance artists of Smuin, in this first
program of their twenty-fourth season.
A cast of ten walked
forward in a casual, unrushed gait, which quickly erupted into an expansive pas
de deux for five pairs. Jubilant and varied movement abounded: flexed feet,
thrown lifts, chugging jumps to the side. Morphing from a full ensemble
statement into smaller groupings, the choreographic layering continued and
accumulated with swiveling heads and emboîté turns; funny, whimsical moments
meeting with luscious grace. Nicole Haskins and Jonathan Powell brought an
innocent, playful vivaciousness with an early waltz and delighted with
exuberant pas de chats and more emboîtés in the accelerando section near the
end of the piece. This contrasted beautifully with the forward motion and sense
of longing in Tessa Barbour and Robert Kretz’s lengthy duet; full of hope and
strength, their stretchy arabesques sculpted the entire space around them. And
while Serenade for Strings is not
exclusively partnering, Ammon’s ballet is most definitely a dance for couples,
steeped with a deep throughline of reciprocal respect.
I actually quite enjoyed
seeing a different choreographic perspective paired with this known ballet
music, and because Ammon’s Serenade for
Strings has been in the Smuin repertory for a couple of years, the physical
syntax is very much in their wheelhouse (with the exception of few challenging transitions
here and there). Though I am curious about Serenade
for Strings’ compositional structure, particularly the long middle portion,
which, though beautifully danced, felt like it lagged. The piece follows an
allegro-andante/adagio-allegro vivace movement sequence, or fast-slow-fast. Certainly
a common format for choreography, and equally common is that the middle section
can prove elusive, and that was the case here.
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Erica Felsch and the Smuin company in Annabelle Lopez Ochoa's Requiem for a Rose Photo Keith Sutter |
Next up on Dance Series
01 was the much-anticipated Requiem for a
Rose, by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, a ballet that penetrates with its contrasts
and dynamic arc. The lights rose to reveal Erica Felsch center stage, a scarlet
rose held in her mouth. Replete with ferocious, powerful choreography, Felsch’s
opening solo married angular motions with wild swings; intensely crossed 5th
positions with pulsating isolations. As twelve dancers (a bouquet of roses)
entered the space to join her, the visual contrasts were striking. They, in
flowing red skirts; she, in a minimal flesh-toned leotard; the other women in
the cast with their hair tied back and wearing pointe shoes; she, hair
unencumbered and with no shoes at all. From this point, the stage would
continually transform into a series of distinct vignettes, each one a dynamic
journey of physical fortissimos and mezzo pianos, emphatic accents and
sustained fermatas. An emotive first duet by Valerie Harmon and Oliver-Paul
Adams stunned with its sweeping, innovative lifts, while the men’s quintet
sequence introduced charged turns and directional shifts. A later enchainment
by Harmon brought back motifs from Felsch’s first solo, re-imagined and
re-envisioned, followed by the sublime intertwined energy of Erin
Yarbrough-Powell and Ben Needham-Wood’s serpentine duet. And then, the simple,
but powerful conclusion to Requiem for a
Rose. Led by Felsch, the cast walked across the stage from right to left.
Had they decided that she knew the way and they would follow her? Did they just
want to momentarily experience and visit in her reality? Or were they
transfixed and hypnotized by her wisdom and acuity?
Closing the Dance Series
01 program was the revue-style ballet set to Frank Sinatra classics, Fly Me to the Moon, created by company
founder Michael Smuin. Elegant, sparkling gowns, white gloves and debonair hats
filled the stage for this choreographically diverse suite – traditional ballet
set off by lyrical flair, contemporary vocabulary infused with jazz and social
dance. Fly Me to the Moon is cool,
it’s sophisticated and most important, it is fun. Throughout the nine
individual scenes, flowy, well-crafted, yet demanding, phrase material
unfolded: parallel pirouettes and Russian pas de chats, layouts, drag slides
and grapevines, batterie arising out of the most surprising moments. Old-school
tap even made an appearance in the first part of Erica Chipp-Adams and Adams’ The Way You Look Tonight – a mélange of pullbacks,
paddle turns and double wings. Every lift and motion in Felsch and Powell’s Moonlight Serenade fittingly ascended
skyward. And Kretz was the epitome of smooth and specificity with the
Fosse-influenced That’s Life solo.
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