© Erik Tomasson and SFB SFB 'Divertimento' reviews 'Divertimento' reviews 'Artifact' reviews 'Aunis' reviews Sofranko in reviews recent SFB reviews more Renee Renouf reviews Discuss this review (Open for at least 6 months)

Thanks to Nancy Reynolds' trusty tome, Repertory in Review, I confirmed my impression that Mr. B’s 1956 essay to Mozart featured its early galaxy premiered the spring before Tanquil Le Clerq’s tragic encounter with polio in Coepenhagen in August that year. Diana Adams, Melissa Hayden, Allegra Kent, Tanaquil LeClerq and Patricia Wilde were the women, Herbert Bliss, Nicholas Magallanes and Roy Tobias were the men.

San Francisco Ballet cast Katita Waldo, Vanessa Zahorian, Frances Chung, Kristin Long and RachelVaselli with Nicolas Blanc, Jaime Garcia Castilla and Gennadi Nedvigin (I miss the e at the end which he recently dropped.) Technically speaking, the men at SF B must be aces and spades over the original cast barring Magallanes' stage presence, but the women were hard pressed to exceed the panache and presence of that original quintet. Not that the San Francisco women aren’t winners in their own right, but the memory of that New York five is difficult to replace.

That said, the eight principals did very well indeed. Waldo is consistently distinctive; the inflections of her port de bras caught my eye before I realized who she was. Not remembering having seen the work before, I pieced together which variation was danced by which dancer originally. I felt Waldo danced Le Clerq’s assignment while Viselli’s cool classicism was given Adams’ role. Kristin Long must have followed Patricia Wilde while Frances Chung was danced Kent’s original part. Perhaps all wet in this speculation, I suspect Zahorian graced the demands of Hayden’s role. They looked fetching, dancing with phrasing no one could quarrel over. The same could be said of the men, although Castilla’s dancing seemed singularly accented for the general blandness of the piece. Blanc can be counted upon to assess the proportions of a ballet, his role and adapt accordingly, while Nedviguin danced with his usual rock solid classicism, totally there.

Aunis was given over to a second, all American cast: Garrett Anderson, Rory Hohenstein and James Sofranko, the first two recently promoted to soloist positions, Sofranko still in the corps. If this performance is indicative, Sofranko shouldn’t remain a corps member for long. Always a good sport and possessed of a medium-sized body suited for technical demands, Sofranko absorbed the music, was one with it in that elevated state where dancer, impulse and music meld as if forever fused, the plaintive chords and swirling swoops of the melodies, the solitary accordion evoking memorable moments in a simpler time. I simply could not take my eyes off him.
 

Then there was Artifact Suite, contracted to be the finale of any program where it is featured. Muriel Maffre-Pierre Francois Vilanoba and Lorena Feijoo-Pascal Molat were the two couples while Elana Altman was the semiphore figure. The two couples - Maffre-Vilanoba, spare and long limbed, Feijoo-Molat, intense and emotional in attack - one couldn’t ask for better casting while Altman directed the corps movement like some Isis figure in an Egyptian bas relief. I may be lazy or dense, but whatever is/was/will be the point of the abrupt dropping of the safety curtain - end of life, major intrusion in assumptions or expectations, surely eludes me. It seems more an interesting way of saying up yours.

Part 2 with the full company was a demonstration of just how good, how unified the company can be; despite the music, they danced like a wave surging on the beach, filling the stage with a conviction beyond themselves. If Forsythe can elicit such a quality in an ensemble, I guess he has to be forgiven that safety curtain act.