Smuin Contemporary Ballet - "Future Forward"

Smuin Contemporary Ballet
Future Forward
Lesher Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek
May 1st, 2026

In just a matter of weeks, Smuin Contemporary Ballet’s 2025/2026 season will reach its conclusion. And what a year it has been! Mixed repertory programs, premiere works, a holiday extravaganza and the launch of their new choreographic platform, Spring Point. Before heading to Mountain View, the final bill of the year, Future Forward, ran for a weekend at the Lesher Center in Walnut Creek. It was terrific. Ahead of curtain, Artistic Director Amy Seiwert shared that the four ballets we were about to see were incredibly different, and that was not an exaggeration. Future Forward gave us storytelling. Topically urgent narratives. Embodied grace. And it highlighted the link between choreographic and musical form. It was a great night of concert dance and certainly had this viewer (and I’m sure others) anxious to see what Smuin has in store as it looks ahead to its future.

Yuri Rogers and Maggie Carey in
Skarpetowska’s Sextette 
Photo Maximillian Tortoriello

Katarzyna Skarpetowska’s Sextette (2021) took the first leg of the evening’s ballet tour. And it was a brilliant journey into compositional structure. The suite for six dancers (four women, two men) beautifully mirrors its Baroque score by J.S. Bach. A long era in music history (1600-1750, depending on who you ask), the Baroque style is known for certain characteristics. One is how voices exist as simultaneously independent and interdependent. Individual musical lines are strong in their own right, and at the same time, enter a conversation with others. Like in an invention or a fugue. That conversation continues and develops until the piece in question reaches its finale. 

So, with Sextette. It was an ongoing exchange between the classical and contemporary worlds. The music, of course, was classical. The white shorts and crop tops (costuming by Susan Roemer), contemporary. A courtly atmosphere. Pointe shoes. And this dialogue was especially pronounced in Skarpetowska’s choreography. Classical petit allegro was contrasted with parallel stances. Textbook arabesques cascaded into bird arms. Russian pas de chats and temps de cuisse were followed by inventive interpretations on the classic fish dive.

More or less, we stayed in the same historical era for Michael Smuin and Raquel Bitton’s Hearts Suite, a dramatic, theatrical duet that delves into the commedia dell-arte and operatic spaces. Here we experienced ballet as storytelling. Danced (compellingly) at this performance by Tess Lane and Dominic Barrett, Hearts Suite is unrequited love. Through its solo and shared moments, it conveys yearning, longing and desire, and as the pas de deux ends, the resolution is somewhat unclear. And I think that’s on purpose.

Having premiered on San Francisco Ballet in 1986, Hearts Suite is forty. The three other works in Future Forward are from the current decade. Programming something from somewhere in the middle might have been an idea to consider. But regardless of its age, Hearts Suite served as a reminder of how incredibly intricate Michael Smuin’s choreography was and is. It looks lyrical and easeful, but at its core, it is both technically intricate and deeply layered.

Andi Schermoly’s Jane Doe opened with a non-descript egalitarian quality. Six couples, costumed by Christopher Dunn, in black; charcoal chairs dotting the space. Each woman stared ahead stoically, with dread, and immediately, I was concerned for them. As the world premiere continued, it was clear that the concern was well-founded. An urgent narrative was unfolding – the treatment of women by men. Their limbs were manipulated by their partners. Palms were violently grabbed. Dancers were aggressively dragged across the floor. Hands clasped over mouths. It felt perilous. And then a potent shift. In a physical statement of defiance and strength, the six women came together in a determined, grounded variation, complete with staccato, body percussion. Jane Doe’s first two-thirds confronted the audience, and it was powerful.

As Jane Doe went on, it ventured a little into the Dance Theater realm – adding elements like additional costuming, music, props, scenework and intentional absurdity. But dipping into that genre for a short time doesn’t always read, and in this case, Jane Doe’s thread got a bit lost. 

Eleanor Prince & Dominic Barrett in
Seiwert's Still Falling
Photo Maximillian Tortoriello

Future Forward closed with another world premiere, Seiwert’s Still Falling. Set against Jim French’s ombré cyclorama, Still Falling was a multi-chaptered suite where elegance reigned supreme. Whether in solo, duets, trios, quintets or full cast expressions, every movement, every moment, was polished and refined. And it featured Seiwert’s singular way of exploring the possibilities that ballet vocabulary and technique have. Elegance was certainly the throughline, but there were plenty of moods and tones at play. Some chapters were sweeping and expansive, others delicate and soft. A broad dynamic spectrum was on full display. Smooth, legato variations against sprightly, precise gestures. Still Falling was ravishing and I cannot wait to see it again.