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Diablo BalletNovember 2008 Walnut Creek, Dean Lesher Center by Renee Renouf |
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Diablo Ballet has experienced a leadership shift when it segued from its original, principal patron; a wider spread of corporate and individual support has fostered a leaner company. The board also instigated changes in Diablo's artistic structure. Replacing the associate artistic director post with an executive director has placed Lauren Jonas entirely responsible for the ensemble's aesthetic future. Viktor Kabaniaev was named Diablo Ballet’s resident choreographer, adding to joint responsibility with Tina Kay Bohnstedt for the classes Diablo Ballet sponsors at Contra Costa’s Center for the Arts. The company roster lists just seven dancers: Erika Johnson has returned and new is Jenna McClintock, both much enjoyed dancers who first trained locally. For its fifteenth season opener, November 21-22 at Walnut Creek's Dean Lesher Center for the Arts, the audience was given “An Evening on Broadway,” mostly tasteful dancing to some of Broadway’s best musicals. Christopher Stowell, Oregon Ballet Theater’s artistic director, revived a Balanchine’s Who Cares suite, mounting his own Some Eyes on You to Cole Porter’s witty music. Viktor Kabaniaev premiered Difference of Perception a two-melody My Fair Lady pas de deux . Despite its various Emmy nominations, the clunker was Lynn Taylor-Corbett’s Swing. Jenna McClintock and Edward Stegge smoothed their way through I Get a Kick Out of You while Tina Kay Bohnstedt assumed a kewpie-doll like persona for My Heart Belongs to Daddy,supported by Diablo Ballet’s Apprentice Program and a student from Berkeley Ballet. Bohnstedt returned to her usual charisma in Night and Day with Jenkins Pelaez as gallant support. Next came Lynn Taylor-Corbett’s Swing; for the life of me I can’t see how it garnered so many Emmy nominations. It did provide a sassy Diablo return for Erika Johnson, balancing her second life as a nurse for Walnut Creek’s Kaiser facility; for the West Coast section, she sailed through it full tilt and amiability, to be seconded by Mayo Sagano, dressed in Sandra Woodall's flaming fringe. Sugano did likewise with the Latin number. Every step was danced to a dizzying tempo requiring David Foneggra and Jenkins Pelaez to toss the two around their necks, between their legs and make like tires around their waists; a few measures allowed the men to accomplish some independent jumps and turns, all at the now-you-see-it-flitting-by pace. The virtuosity was impressive, choreography nyet. Viktor Kabaniaev’s pas de deux, more accurately solos for two, to On The Street Where You Live and Get Me To The Church On Time, was a trifle requiring first Bohnstedt and later Stegge to a public display of top-drawer distortion. Pianist Satoko Fogerty supplied musical continuity and disruption, switching piano scores and commencing the peppy Get Me tune. The switch prompted a flood of English, German to Fogerty’s Japanese. Returning to On The Street, it was Bohnstedt’s turn to exhibit lyric symmetry and Stegge’s round of contortion; amazing, amusing, a trifle with just the right touch for the evening’s theme. The evening closed with dance suite from Balanchine’s Who Cares, McClintock winning hearts with The Man I Love and Fascinatin’ Rhythm.
Post-script: Nikolai Kabaniaev, Diablo's former associate artistic director, currently is teaching class and choreographing for Company C, Walnut Creek's second dance ensemble.
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