His own work in the second programme, Concerto Grosso, was a perfect demonstration of this. Set to music 'after Corelli', it's made for five men - one principal, Pascal Molat, who's French-trained and has been in the company only a couple of years, and four corps de ballet dancers from Argentina, Arizona, Spain and Japan. Molat has slightly more to do, but the four others all get plenty of opportunity for both virtuoso steps and controlled adagio. It's not done either as a competition or as a way to get the audience screaming; rather it's a quiet demonstration of the company's power. I'd imagine it's an excellent confidence builder for the younger men coming up through the ranks, and one that could have a long useful life ahead.

The other in-house work, Study in Motion was by principal dancer Yuri Possokhov, whose Magritte-inspired piece we saw when the company was last here. In complete contrast to that, this is an attempt at almost pure dance: you could detect some sort of development in the relationships of the eight dancers on stage, but nothing that you could remotely describe as narrative. Possokhov has used piano pieces by Scriabin: so instantly he's challenging comparison with memories of Robbins, and much more immediately with Christopher Wheeldon's Ligeti explorations, one of which was very fresh in the minds of those who'd been to the company's first night. I have to say I didn't find much interest in what he was saying - certainly not enough to sustain the half-hour it lasted. There was some difference in emotional tone between the various pas de deux, but even such strongly individual dancers as Loreno Feijoo and Yuan Yuan Tan couldn't convince me that I was watching more than a try-out of the form. (And none of the women was helped by some of the most unflattering costumes imaginable.)

The rest of the programme was Balanchine. Ballo della Regina is a gorgeous piece, made to show off and even challenge the steely technique of the great virtuoso Merrill Ashley. The charming Vanessa Zahorian couldn't bring the same scintillating glory to the steps but that still leaves room for an interpretation of pleasing presence and involvement. Gonzalo Garcia met his own technical challenges with more ease. Four Temperaments, which we've had the pleasure of seeing quite often in the last couple of season, closed the evening. (And lots of people went home before it! - how could they miss such a treat?) Nutnaree Pipithsukunt, lately of the Royal Ballet School, looked assured in the third of the opening Themes, and from the rest I particularly liked Nicolas Blanc (Melancholic) and Sarah van Patten (Sanguinic). But like the whole show, it was primarily a company performance.

Yuan Yuan Tan and Damian Smith in Study in Motion

Moises Martin with Nutnaree Pipithsuksunt,
3rd Theme, Four Temperaments

John Ross SFB Program 2 album

Ballet.co SFB Gallery Area

© John Ross

Helgi Tomasson's "Concerto Grosso" was a lively work showing off five of the company's male talent. Yuri Possokhov's choreography for his ballet "Study in Motion" wasn't particularly striking, though it was well danced by the whole cast.

‘Square Dance/Continuum/Le Carnaval des Animaux’
‘Ballo Della Regina/Concerto Grosso/Study in Motion/The Four Temperaments’

Sadler’s Wells-
20/21 September 2004

When asked if he was the greatest football manager, the late Brian Clough is said to have replied that he wasn’t sure about being the greatest but he was definitely in the top one! The San Francisco Ballet is content with the lesser claim, through their PR literature, to be one of the finest classical companies in America. On the evidence of this week, they are far too modest. For America, read world.

Both of the first two programmes opened with a Balanchine novelty, at least for these shores. The first programme commenced with ‘Square Dance’, which had its premiere in New York just 10 days ahead of the much more familiar ‘Agon’. The first performance of ‘Square Dance’ on 21 November 1957 ended an 18-month fallow period in Mr B’s output, which had been enforced through the turmoil in his private life (his fourth wife, Tanny Le Clercq, had contracted polio on a tour to Copenhagen in 1956 and almost died).

By the Summer of 1957, the pent up energy flowed out in a frenzy of creation with ‘Square Dance’, ‘Agon’, ‘Gounod Symphony’ and ‘Stars and Stripes’ all being choreographed concurrently. According to Edward Villella (whose debut for Balanchine was in the first-night corps of ‘Square Dance’) after each rehearsal, Balanchine would ask where to go next and ‘ …somebody would point him in the right direction: he’d move into a studio and start working on another of the new ballets’.

Given his private hell, Balanchine’s career could quite easily have gone into terminal decline at the age of 53 and these two magnificent new ballets swept him back to the top of the tree. For this reason, ‘Square Dance’ and ‘Agon’ have a pivotal place in the huge catalogue of his work. Where ‘Agon’ provided the next stage in his choreographic relationship with Stravinsky and a significant shift in style, ‘Square Dance’ picked up his love affair with America and its popular culture, standing between ‘Western Symphony’ and its timeline twin, ‘Stars and Stripes’.

‘Square Dance’ was an immediate hit, although this is hard to imagine with the dancers performing alongside the on-stage orchestra and, even more so, with the music of Vivaldi and Corelli competing with the sing-song couplets (“Nick and Pat go wickety-wack”!) of the square dance caller - the wonderfully named Elisha B. Keeler. This incongruity must have got to Balanchine in the end because almost 20 years later he despatched the orchestra back to its pit and knocked the caller firmly on the head, to leave us with just the sound of Vivaldi and Corelli and the exclusive vision of his beautiful ballet.

All of which brings me back to the San Francisco Ballet, which only added ‘Square Dance’ to its Rep in March of this year, and how brilliantly their dancers handled the intricacies and subtleties of the piece. It is a feast that intersperses a full menu of classical technique, attacked with a neo-classical, American vigour. The fluent and nimble footwork of Tina LeBlanc was an absolute joy, ably supported by the faultless, yet perhaps marginally less bold, dancing of Joan Boada. However, it seems almost invidious to single out the two Principals since the all-around perfect timing and technique of the whole cast of fourteen dancers was truly exceptional.

This brilliance for Balanchine was replicated on the next evening with both ‘Ballo Della Regina’ and ‘The Four Temperaments’. The first of these was created by Balanchine for new favourite, Merrill Ashley, in 1978. It entered the SFB Repertory in 1987 and is staged for them by Ashley herself. It uses the ballet music from Verdi’s ‘Don Carlos’, played here by the English Chamber Orchestra, and abstractly tells the tale of a fisherman’s search for the perfect pearl, although it would be impossible for anyone to know this without being told!

Vanessa Zahorian and Gonzalo Garcia attacked the principal roles with an elegant verve to their lyrical dancing and were well matched by the four solos of Amanda Schull ( Jody Sawyer from the film ‘Center Stage’ - filmed when she was an SFB apprentice), Nicole Starbuck, Rachel Viselli and Courtney Wright.

It is always a delight to see the core dance values of ‘The Four Temperaments’, which has been in SFB’s Rep since 1974, and especially when they are danced as superbly as on this second night. Yuri Possokhov’s state-of-the-art Phlegmatic flirtation with his four girlfriends, followed by the imposing choleric variation of Muriel Maffre were the best interpretations of these temperaments that I have yet seen and a wonderful way to end the second programme.

This 4T’s was also very notable for reminding us Londoners just what we have lost in the wonderful Nutnaree Pipithsuksunt, the 18 year-old Thai ballerina who left the Royal Ballet School this Summer to go straight into the San Francisco Ballet as a soloist. I can’t think of a better reason to be checking out air fares to San Francisco, although for anyone who can wait that long, she is on record as saying that she hopes to come back to the Royal Ballet as a Guest in a few years’ time.

In addition to these great Balanchine works, the first two SFB programmes at Sadler’s Wells showcased some other lesser gems. There were two homespun works between the Balanchines’ of the second programme. The first by Helgi Tomasson (‘Concerto Grosso’), a vibrant piece for five men created in 2003, followed by Yuri Possokhov’s ‘Study in Motion’ for four couples, which premiéred earlier this year. I loved them both but felt especially that ‘Study in Motion’ presages a mega choreographic talent for this Principal Dancer from the Ukraine who has been with the company for ten years. It was a study in contrasting pas de deux to Scriabin’s piano music which had an extraordinary beauty, particularly in the deeply romantic central pas deux between the outstanding Yuan Yuan Tan and Damian Smith.

The two remaining pieces in the first programme were Christopher Wheeldon’s ‘Continuum’ and Alexei Ratmansky’s ‘Le Carnaval des animaux’. ‘Continuum’ was created on the San Francisco Ballet in 2002, another ballet for four couples, amongst whom Yuan Yuan Tan and Smith were a delightfully undulating organism, seamlessly wrapped, softly and sensuously around one another. ‘Le Carnaval des animaux’ was a fun end to an outstanding programme showing that the company has an adventurous and humorous side to its classical discipline. Maffre’s dying and dead swan and Lorena Feijoo’s off-centred Elephant were great highlights and warmly appreciated by a glowing audience.

I‘ve seen several great companies perform Balanchine’s work in this his Centenary year. Many of the performances have been excellent: I would find it hard to judge which company was best but I wouldn’t dispute the assertion that the San Francisco Ballet is amongst the top one!

Graham Watts

This company is certainly worthy of repeated visits. They have a verve and pep that is contagious and your review captured it exactly.

Concerto Grosso, the piece for five men, was the real audience favourite on the night. Again, they seemed to prefer Tomasson's own choreography to other items on offer. It really does show off the men of the company extremely well. The lead (in red) was Pascale Molat. Wonderful jumps, and great control. What really registed were how good the other four men were: not principals, not even soloists,, just members of the corps, but really strong, powerful dancers, each of them shown off with nicely contrasting steps.

Possokhov's Study in Motion didn't do too much for me, despite some wonderful dancers in the cast. It hasn't lingered in the memory.

Lorena Feijoo was the lead in Ballo della Regina. This is a piece by Balanchine which can't have been seen in the UK for many years. This might be a surprise to US readers, but the Balanchine we get here is very restricted, and we get a very partial view of the work. It seemed quite odd to be listening to Verdi, rather than something from the 20th century. The lead role is fiendishly difficult.

The version of the Four Temperaments was terrific, the best I've ever seen of this work. Done with real love and care. Pierre Francois Vilanoba as Phelgmatic, Muriel Maffre as Choleric particularly good, but it was a real company performance - everyone in it working very cohesively together. A real pleasure. And a quick glimpse of Nutnaree Pipithsuksunt with Chidozie Nzerem (remembered from an Edinburgh visit) in the third theme - looking very much at home.

I hope they come back again soon.