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The Discovery Program of which was one half featured six premieres by choreographers, four of which are principal dancers in San Francisco Ballet. The remaining two, Vladimir Anguelov, is from the Kirov Academy in Washington and the English-born Christopher Wheeldon, now dancing with New York City Ballet. For both A and B Programs it was fascinating to see the company members not involved gathered in clumps over the auditorium. The degree of company interest and emotional investment in both programs was palpable and reiterated the comments frequently issues about the family or clannish nature of ballet ensembles.

Impetuous
Music: Philip Glass
Choreography: Vladimir AnguelovScenic Design: Sandra Woodall
Costume Design: Robert Rosenwasser
Lighting Design: Kevin Connaughton
Violin Soloist: Roy Malan

Woodalls set depicted a distant set of cliffs, as if the foreground may have been a Southwestern mesa or the series of rugged fissured tabletops which stretch under the wings of an airplane en route from Los Angeles to the southern parts of Arizona. The lighting played against the further backdrop of clouds, now brilliant, then cloudy, then lit as if an epiphany was occurring. The sense of mental and physical urgency interwove with the images of an all male ensemble fast at work with intricate, if expansive choreography. At times there was a wonderful surge of collective energy in the rise and fall of the ensemble. With glinting, gun metal and copper tones to trunks and tunics, the visual impact is arresting and suggests as much the tradition of an army ensemble from Greek or Roman antiquity as the horses referred to in the program notes.

Parrish Maynard is wiry in build and his lean torso, showing ribs, shoulder bones and scapula, provided a physical impatience to contrast with the smooth muscle masses and blond serenity of Stephen Legate, whose name I sometimes think should be changed to legato in tribute to his movement style. Interpreted as father/son relationship; Jesus/God and other possible archetypal images, the foremost quality is one of relationship, testing, rejecting, relying, sharing, surrender. I found myself at various moments thinking, Isnt this about the end of the score? But Glass seems to have substituted length for intricacy, and the choreographer was forced to invite more. More than once I found lines from Francis L.K. Thompsons Hound of Heaven rising to my mind, I fled him, I fled him down the nights and down the days, I fled him down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind and in the mist of tears I hid from him..,. apt to the theme.

I hope the work is repeated next season, if only to see whether the initial impact sustains itself. The coherence and skill of the ensemble was indisputable, and Anguelov must have enjoyed having such talent at his disposal.

Sea Pictures
Music: Edward Elgar
Choreography: Christopher Wheeldon
Costumes: Holly Hynes
Lighting: Lisa J. Pinkham
Mezzo-Soprano: Katia Giselle Escalera
Wheeldon chose from Elgar: Sea Slumber Song; Where Corals Lie; In Haven; Sabbath Morning at Sea; The Swimmer.

The audience saw projections of the sea change with each song and two boulders to provide meaning and direction for several important moments in the ballet. The costumes are simple, somber colored frocks for the girls, caps, vests and trousers for the men which provide the feeling of men who live close to the sea.

Several critics remarked of the affinity to Tudor and that his emotional quality was one note. Despite the sea theme, Wheeldon is sunnier than Tudor in his sorrow and his lyricism owes more to the ambiance of Ashton works in his environment than to Tudor. His choreographic choices for Sea Pictures is of a painterly palette of emotional greys to faint greens, suggesting, yet veering from blue. My own reaction was how intertwined the choreographic patterns were to ocean movements rushing into shore and breaking over stone barriers. I found myself thoroughly captivated by the affinity of intricate lifts and rushing movements, not only to the emotion of men for women and women for men, but to the ebb and flow of water, particularly the water of the unconscious.

There were some delicious human moments when Julia Diana turns gently insistent with Damian Smith; one could sense the intricate maneuvers of the feminine to claim the protectiveness of the masculine and to mould it to suit a need. There were several brief passages when Joanna Berman, alone, moved across the stage in a transition with naked vulnerability. The ensemble of men around Yuri Possokhov as the man lost at sea, being both companion and water under which he is lost, was remarkable in conveying the final moments in a life. When the men return to claim their women, and Joanna finds herself alone in that awful space where everything is paired and one is not, also was wrenching.

I suspect that many in the audience wanted a Nora Kaye-Tudor pitch from Wheeldon. On first view I liked what I saw, always conscious of the lush rise and fall of Escaleras voice.

Concerto Romantique
Music: Max Bruch
Choreographer: David Palmer
Costumes: Jorge Gallardo
Lighting: Jack Carpenter
Violin: Roy Malan

David Palmers choreography also might have been more suitably served as the opening ballet, instead of number three. I was told that this was originally intended, but the sequence was changed for reasons not given. The rigors of positioning and what it says about those who make the choices is in itself an interesting subject. I also think David Palmer was tempting fate when attempting to make visual the lush, intricate romanticism of Max Bruchs First Violin Concerto, with an ensemble of fourteen, including the principals.

At Conversations with the Choreographers March 22 Sheryl Flatow interviewed the four company choreographers slated for Program VI. Palmer indicated then he kept the Bruch CD in his automobile and had danced another choreographers version. He stated he envisioned an evocation of the mid-19th century ballroom in keeping with the period of Bruchs composition. The realization of this, with swags of diaphanous mint-green drapery and chandeliers, was more ballroom than evocation, more brilliant lights than incandescent chemistry. I think with the swirls and swoops in Bruchs music, I wanted glimpses of shade and shadow as well as the crashing chords of emotional fate. Also, mens tunics palled in comparison to the classic jackets provided for Christopher Stowells ballet two nights later.

La Carras suppleness was able to sustain some of the convolutions of the violin, but not all. Cyril Pierre provided able support. Palmer made skillful use of the supporting dancers, giving them a gentle series of conversational-like transitions in the background, plausible and low-keyed to the demonstration of chemistry between La Carra and Pierre. The technical demands and stamina required of everyone left me gasping as much as they, and certainly demonstrated that Palmer does not lack for technical vocabulary or the capacity phrase musically to a punishing score. Id like to see the ballet again, at the beginning of the evening, before passing strong yea or ney judgment.