'Square Dance' reviews 'Grosse Fuge' reviews 'Reflections' reviews LeBlanc in reviews Zahorian in reviews recent SFB reviews more Renee Renouf reviews Discuss this review (Open for at least 6 months)

Choreographer Carlos Carvajal pointed out to me that the evening was almost exclusively all- white; except for the slight tones of the men’s tights in Square Dance, black skirts and tights in Grosse Fuge, the red tutus and the men’s black tights in Reflections. It threw concentration on the dancing but sameness of color might be considered in later programming.

That said, it was the company’s fine dancing which dominated, starting with Tina LeBlanc in the role created by Patricia Wilde, New York City Ballet’s early supreme technician. How unrelenting the demands are, and how steadily, simply and clearly LeBlanc met them, as did Zahorian in one of the most animated performance she has given. The solo which Balanchine created for Bart Cook and which he has rehearsed with San Francisco’s dancers owes much to gestures from Apollo, an exercise in elegance of line, virtuosity saved for the leader and corps response section. Garcia, who partners LeBlanc frequently, was very composed, the two enchanting the audience and giving rousing recognition to LeBlanc.

In keeping with the music, there is the appropriate number of repetitions, left, right, left, right, or vice versa, much petite allegro that seem to go on forever, particularly entrechats and changements, making one wonder where and when the dancers can catch their breath. It is particularly strenuous in the final movement.

The orchestra is gone from the stage, the caller with them (I think the Joffrey Ballet still stages the original). The allemande formation remain and “Gentlemen forward and back” remains the American square dance, the derivative of English country dancing which provided the European contre-danses with both form and its peculiar adaptive name. It is particularly notable from the balcony.

Grosse Fuge is a vastly intriguing work, as intricate as Beethoven music , Grosse Fuge, Opus 133 and The Canatina from String Quarter No. 13, Opus 130, unrelenting in its strong declarative qualities; it is both formal and modern, opposite and similar, gender dynamics and relationships, but not about sexual attraction. Van Manen has taken his divided skirts for the men from Graham, divided in front and skirted in back, topped by a buckled belt which serves as a crucial prop. The girls are in creme-hued form fitting tank suits, with cream applique lines coming from over the breasts into a V shape at the crotch, noticeable, but not offensive. A series of loops attached to a comb, a different color for each woman, rests at the back of their heads, a flamenco dancer’s adornment.

The women stand in quartet fashion upstage right when the curtain rises, silent, and the men file on stage in a line from stage left, crossing the stage with great strides, arms at shoulder height, fists clenched closing across the chest and then thrust laterally with vigorous emphasis. They turn, using their heel and a cocked foot, stand in broad seconds, filling the stage while the women wait, like brooding pigeons, in the corner.

The first solo, by Sofranko and Piantino, involves changes of direction, an occasional floor movement. It is followed by Legate and Brandenhoff, emphasizing the opening movement,and then Moises Martin who is seen to his best advantage. The broad second, the in-out horizontal thrust of the arms figure in all the men’s variation.

Before the women come forward, the men have assumed the quartet position down stage left. The women begin to move, hands to the side, closed fist position, then arms flung out, spreading to a covey-like diagonal, wheeling, the lead leg often slightly bent, assuming their own demi seconds at times, coming into positions beside the men who will partner them. Feijoo’s arm movements stood out as a more vertical thrust, where the other three women in both casts echoed the broad horizontal of the men, a telling commentary on her schooling as is a tendency to lower her head excessively.

The group then moves as a unit, side by side, until the men retreat, the women still forward. The men remove their hakama like skirts to reveal short black trunks. Then follows a fascinating sequence where the men move over the women who are lying down, their feet upstage. They cross over them, one leg executing a low half rond de jambe over the partner’s body, a territorial, lordly move, strong, protective. The women reach up, grasping the buckle of the men’s tights enabling the men to drag them across the floor and the women to rise to torso height at times. Were it not all executed with solemnity, one might consider it rape or submission; it definitely exudes an air of ritual. The floor movement gets reversed, with the men prone, the women executing the same rond de jambe over the men’s bodies and hoisting them to torso height.

In the final movement they move in formation to down stage right; the covey has reached its nesting place. They slowly lie down, Feijoo and Martin the last ones, an arm arching to reach the other’s as the curtain descends.

I leaned over to the man next to me both evenings to say, “The subtitle of this work is Buckle Up.”

Yuri Possokhov demonstrated again his ability to move in new directions within his remarkable fidelity to the classic tradition. As in the 2004 Study in Motion, Possokhov chose unusual music, Felix Mendelssohn’s First Symphony, musical source for his vision of what classical ballet is or should become. If the classic tradition does proceed along the Possokhov path, it will surprise, please and reaffirm our love not only of its regularity, but also its amazing capacity to embrace variety.

Sandra Woodall’s designs were created to an interest Possokhov expressed in the colors red, black and white; her use of panels of mirrors across the back of the stage echo, perhaps even evoked the title. She has created sleeveless black tank unitards for the men with an inconspicuous design across the chest; for the women, red and white tutus juting out with the same tautness as the lime green exclamations in William Forsythe’s Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude. The happy differences are that the bodices are marked by lacing in the back and a crisp pie-shaped wedge of small pleats jut out in the back like eyebrow exclamations.

At curtain rise the corps de ballet is seen silhouetted in a classical pose diagonal lines towards up stage. Almost before the music begins they fall to the floor into a pose signalling Swan Lake, Act IV to the lover of the classics, and then rise again as Kristin Long bourrees rapidly out from stage left. She continues to bourree around the center, flanked by the corps; no sooner does the mind register, ‘This is the Possokhov acknowledgment of his own and ballet’s lineage,’ than Lorena Feijoo, in red tutu, bourrees in from upstage center, shortly followed by her cohorts in scarlet. Several musical punctuations Long and Feijoo accent with held second position en pointe ecarte, piquant solution to tempestuous, declarative musical rumbles. The corps as well as Long and Feijoo sporadically preen like the Russian ballerina in Tudor’s Gala Performance, hands at the back of the hip, elbows out, the thrust chest like a preening bird or a woman with an expanse of jewels around her neck. It’s a delicious little touch.

This is over rapidly, to be followed by a remarkable pas de deux for Muriel Maffre and Damian Smith, danced largely in circles in upstage center, Maffre appearing frequently with arms en haut and on point. Two of three times she executing low rond de jamb like developpes while Damian Smith is opposite her in a semi-crouched position. There is one moment when he carries her and she collapses in the position. The mood is tender, sustained with Smith partnering skillfully and managing one or two independent movements. However, it is a thoughtful, visually intricate essay on a healthy male-female dependency; both artists render it superbly.

The men emerge with less invention but considerable elan, first Nicolas Blanc, a last minute but effective replacement for Gennadi Nedviguine in an extended solo; then Pascal Molat converses with the audience via his animated face, delighted in his assigned phrases and combinations. The two dance together, text book examples of what Paris Opera training has achieved for talented young men. The varied forms of jetes are given full display.

There is ensemble work for men, and in the finale Blanc and Molat partner Feijoo and Long, after they, with Maffre present an almost syncopated trio passage, fouettes which are introduced in almost canon form. Happily, most of those whipping motions were executed sur la place.

Mendelssohn’s musical bombast in the third and fourth movements did not contribute to musical succinctness; there are places where Reflections is a bit forced and repetitive, an echo of the music rather than a dialogue with it. Possokhov had already disbursed most of his inventions. What lingers in the memory, however, is not only that he has come a long way in his ability to handle a corps de ballet with interest, but the warm aura of his classicism, and an almost puckish impudence in contemporary accents. Possokhov is romantic, dramatic and very much his own man; one is never bored when he makes a choreographic statement. Thank God for that.