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First things first. If you can make it at all to San Francisco Ballet's brief season at the Sadlers' Wells Theater (September 20- 25), do not miss Tina le Blanc in Balanchine's Square Dance. Her dancing in the effervescent ballerina's role is some of the best dancing in the American style to my mind to be seen anywhere. They don't do Square Dance this well at New York City Ballet, for whom of course the ballet was originally made. Le Blanc hits her marks like one of the Nicholas Brothers -- the feet are laughing, the whole body is singing, she tosses off gargouillades with the casual spontaneous playfulness you'd see in a kid on a skateboard. ("want to see that again?") Her rapid-fire piques in the finale make me giddy with delight - such profusion, such bounty, such gladness. The ballet is one of Balanchine's happiest novelties, built around the conceit that American square dancing is the grandchild of eighteenth-century European dance. The steps are haute ecole, the patterns come from quadrilles, it's set to music by Vivaldi and Corelli, but in its first version it was actually "conducted" by a celebrated square-dance caller from Appalachia ("Now honor your partner front and back, make your feet go wickety-wack"). San Francisco's version omits the caller and adds the noble adagio for the ballerino which Balanchine made to a sarabande, to give the ballerina a chance to catch her breath.
Lorena Feijoo
© R J Muna
Under the former danseur noble Helgi Tomasson, San Francisco Ballet has steadily gained stature and become a company of international importance. Tomasson took over twenty years ago, when SFB was the foremost ballet company west of the Mississippi, the oldest continuously operating ballet company in the U.S.A. - but still it was a regional company. All American companies descend from the Ballets Russes. SFB was founded by Adolph Bolm in 1933 to provide dances for the SF Opera and developed under the Christensen brothers (Harold, Willam, and Lew, the last-named of course famous as Balanchine's first American Apollo). The Christensens had serious ballet training but came up in vaudeville. They all had a flair for dance theater, as did co-director Michael Smuin who became the dominant figure in the 70's. By the early 80's, SFB was flying high but came under attack for its neglect of classical values. The board split in a public fight over Smuin as ugly as Lord Byron's divorce - headlines for months, picketing, proxy-gathering on the steps of the opera house, ending in a victory for classicists.
Gonzalo Garcia and Kristin Long in 'Continuum'
Photograph by Weiferd Watts ©
Tomasson as director has turned a company that used to sacrifice classical equilibrium for effects which brought down the house, where principal male dancers did sloppy glissades, into a beautifully disciplined cadre of musician-dancers. His own ballets, while not great choreography, are finely crafted, often beautiful works that give the dancers wonderful chances to shine. His Concerto Grosso displays five men from the lower ranks who look like principal dancers in this ballet. And his new Bach piano-concerto ballet looks like the music sounds - it gleams in the dark (especially when leBlanc dances it).
The least of the current dancers are technically adroit, and they are quick studies - they have to be, they don't get enough rehearsal time. (No American company does, really.) These dancers can execute the most complex transfers of weight and the trickiest rhythms without loss of poise; they can show the transitions cleanly while phrasing the steps with a grand sweep. They share a similar talent and gusto for movement and hunger to perform, which makes for consistency of spirit. On the other hand, they don't have a consistent basic style. It shows least in new works, where the choreographer has coached them, and the details are freshest in their imaginations. But... Head positions are not the same throughout, nor are backs, arms, shoulders, hands, not even feet, and certainly not attack. The roster is packed with fantastic dancers - they come from all over the world (especially Russia, Spain, Cuba, and France). They come in all shapes and sizes and colors, and do not by any means have the same training. The weaknesses of the company show in ballets that require character, epoch, nationality in the background; we have Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, La Sylphide, Don Quixote, Giselle, but only a couple of corps dancers can make convincing peasants (except in a splendid new version of Sylvia by Mark Morris, who has put the qualities he wanted into the steps themselves).
Yuri Possokhov
© R J Muna
Tomasson is not bringing any full-length ballets to London. Instead he is keen to show off his dancers in less-often-seen Balanchine works (linked to the centenary celebrations) and newer company pieces. It should make for a rich mix for ballet lovers.
Square Dance and The Four Temperaments (both by Balanchine) should be the highlights of the season - Just last week, at an outdoor performance in a cool fog, they danced probably the most beautiful 4 T's I have ever seen. The ballet is set to a score that Balanchine (flush with Broadway earnings) commissioned from Paul Hindemith in the 40's to play at home - Nathan Milstein and Leon Barzin were among the musicians who played the first performance. He choreographed it in 1948, using jazzy pelvic tilts, gnarly, cantilevered partnering, and many character steps. Yuri Possokhov dances "Phlegmatic" as if he were Petroushka. It takes my breath away.
Christopher Wheeldon's 'Rush'
Photograph by Douglas Robertson
©
Possokhov (who came from the Bolshoi and the Royal Danish Ballet) is nearing the end of his career as a principal dancer, but the dances he's making promise a great deal - his new Study in Motion, set to Scriabine, is both physically and spiritually arresting. Christopher Wheeldon's Rush is the other new remarkable new piece: it's a striking confection, rather like eating bitter chocolate with orange peel - the effect is rather heartless, but dazzling.
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