Ballet22

Ballet22
ODC Theater, San Francisco
August 11th, 2024

Ballet22 is a dance company on the move. Since debuting in 2020, they have been staking their claim in the ballet world, upending conventions, disrupting presumptions and impressing audiences with every performance engagement. The company’s website says it best, noting that they are dedicated to “presenting men, mxn, and non-binary artists “en pointe.” And this past weekend they, once again, lived into that vision with 2024’s summer season - a mixed repertory bill of classic and contemporary dance works. The pointework was sparkling, phenomenal and textbook precise. Every pointe dancer can gain valuable insight into their practice from witnessing these talented artists.

The program’s first half transported viewers to the 1800s with excerpts and variations from Acts I and II of the beloved Giselle. While Giselle is not a Bournonville ballet per se, one couldn’t help but notice that each divertissement had that specificity of execution. Delicate, yet fast footwork, bright briseés and shining diagonal turning combinations. Control and balance abounded as did lofty airiness and an exactitude of foot placement. It was quite dazzling. Arms floated in 3rd arabesque. Renversé sang through the space. Fluttery boureés skated along the stage’s surface. And the jumps! Cabrioles hung in the air before returning to earth. Sissone assemblé darted forward with intention and purpose. And Giselle’s final batterie series, danced Sunday afternoon by Ashton Edwards, was both artistically and technically flawless.

Daniel R. Durrett and Ashton Edwards in
Forsythe's Approximate Sonata
Photo Gabriel Lorena

Contemporary sensibilities were in store with Ballet22’s second act, a collection of four diverse, intricate pieces. First up was William Forsythe’s Approximate Sonata, a duet created in 1996, whose choreographic material was revisited in 2016. Like many Forsythe ballets, Approximate Sonata celebrated extremes. Exaggerated splits, extensions and attitude postures coupling with supple arms, avian wrists and a sinuous spine. Houston Thomas’ Solo02: KANA, danced by Kobe Courtney, had a delicious off-balance feel with intense, swift directional shifts. I also couldn’t shake influences of Wayne McGregor and Alwin Nikolais throughout the dance. 

A world premiere commission for Ballet22, Christian Denice’s Love Me Tender was the only work on the program without a pointe element to it. It was emotionally charged. It was evocative. It was nuanced. For a trio of performers, Love Me Tender had a number of modalities and forces at play. One was the sense of pulling and pushing – being pulled one way and pushed another. Cantilevering also imbued the pas de trois: positions and partnering that require equal support and strength of others to build and sustain. Love Me Tender also had an incredibly interesting finale. The physicality and the score (by Perfume Genius) came together in a modern-Baroque dialog where movement phrases and musical voices were simultaneously independent and interdependent.

Ballet22 closed their summer event with a second Thomas creation - a pointe quartet titled Bass Am Wasser – and in reading the program notes, it becomes immediately clear how important nature and water are to this ballet. Costumed in plain black unitards and jewel-tone, opera-length gloves, the choreography spoke of the waves that fueled Johannes Goldbach’s score. Sweeping arcs and balancés were everywhere. Arms started in a high 5th position and then dynamically broke apart like waves crashing, while boureés coasted on the ODC stage like water skimming the sand.