© Erik Tomasson, SFB SFB 'Joyride' reviews SFB 'Four Temperaments' reviews 'Four Temperaments' reviews SFB 'Concerto Grosso' reviews Zahorian in reviews Boada in reviews recent SFB reviews more Eric Taub reviews Discuss this review (Open for at least 6 months)

That's not to say Tomasson's a brilliant choreographer (he's not), but his works, at least the ones I've seen, are happily free of bombast or oblique intimations of genius. As with his dancing, he's open and clear in the presentation of his conceits, fortunate or otherwise. Like Balanchine, he works with a craftsman's respect for construction, detail and integrity. Also, like Balanchine, Tomasson loves to present his dancers to best effect; in his ballets, they seldom look less than magnificent. If Tomasson's work falls short of the brilliance of Balanchine's musicality, architectural composition and romantic sensibility, well, who doesn't?

So, The Fifth Season isn't glorious, and has little in the way of an overarching theme (not necessarily a bad thing), but it's sweet, modest, tasteful, and ... pleasant. Pleasant is underrated. It's for three main couples, and a corps of eight, dressed in simple variations of tights, shirts and leotards by Sandra Woodall. The night I went, the leads were Lorena Feijoo and Joan Boada, Sofiane Sylve and Ivan Popov, and Nutnaree Pipit-Suksun and Tiit Helimets. Set to some energetic vaguely classical pieces by Karl Jenkins (and, by the way, I have no idea why it's called "The Fifth Season"), it begins with a fiery duet between Lorena Feijoo and Joan Boada. They're a fun pair to watch, and not lacking in personality: Feijoo probably flares her nostrils when she's tying on her pointe shoes, and Boada can toss off multiple pirouettes on a dime, many of which must have been scattered about the City Center stage. Short and perky, he's SFB's sparkplug, much like City Ballet's Daniel Ulbricht, but without the tree-trunk thighs. Although perhaps in a minority among New York critics, I loved how Sofiane Sylve married her near-athletic prowess (and physique) with the persona of a grand ballerina. I was happy to see her again, at the head of the three male leads in a sprightly tango, showing off her very, very grande jeté. I was entranced with the pairing of Pipit-Suksun with Helimets in the measured paces of the exceptionally largo movement. Pipit-Suksun moved as if she were made of taffy, and as sweetly. I remember her stretching on her toes and arching her strikingly supple back into Helimet's arms, as if a measure were all the time in the world. Her soft, fluid port de bras, and bright smile was icing on her cake. After the ebullient finale, I wondered again why the San Franciscan women are all personality and animation (well, except for Yuan Yuan Tan), while the men, for all their gorgeous technique, often affect a polite, uninterested emotional distance from the women they cradle so well cavalier in every sense of the word. Guys, that's a ballerina in your arms, not a mannequin! Tomasson was the setting in which Patricia McBride became a jewel; has he forgotten?

If the San Franciscan men sometimes seem a bit taken with themselves, it's not without good reason. SFB's bursting with terrific male talent; they certainly blow away the surprisingly thin male principals the Kirov brought to the same theater last spring. While ABT's Kevin McKenzie seems hell-bent on stuffing ABT's male ranks with short tricksters, Tomasson's men, in all sizes, dance with a classical purity that's almost blinding: beautiful line, gorgeously arched feet, technique that's as clear and pure as it is virtuosic. I can't recall seeing so many big, clear, perfectly turned-out entrechats from men at every rank, so many soft and polished landings, such exquisite port de bras. I don't know how much day-to-day involvement Tomasson has with his dancers' training and classes, but this male contingent embodies Tomasson's best qualities even more than his choreography.

This is a roundabout way of introducing the box of crackerjacks that is Tomasson's Concerto Grosso, with the prize in the box being Gennadi Nedvigin (who has kindly simplified the spelling of his name). Resplendent in his red unitard, Nedvigin led Diego Cruz, Daniel Deivison, Taras Domitro and Isaac Hernandez in a merry romp through the land of male virtuosity, to Francesco Geminiani's bouncy Concerto XII in D minor (I wish more companies were as scrupulous as SFB in identifying their musical choices). As male showpieces go, Concerto Grosso's avoids pedantry of Dolin's Variations for Four, and the kitschy manly-manliness of the Cubans' Canto Vital. I sat back and enjoyed the show of these beautifully trained men flying through one tour de force after another, their endless leaps giving plenty of time to admire feet arched as if they'd been wrung through the rollers of an old-fashioned clothes dryer. It was saved from being a mere collection of tricks by its dancers' graceful presentation (would that they presented their ballerinas as well as they do themselves), and the discernment of Tomasson's taste: there no vulgar five-forties or the like. Some of Tomasson's ornamental choices seem a little odd, as when Nedvdgin appears to play patty-cake with himself at a lull in the action. Nevermind. I'd be happy to see Nedvigin play patty-cake. Of all the San Francisco men, he has the most lambent, pure technique, like a young Vladimir Malakhov.

I have to confess that by now, as the kids say, I'm so over John Adams, whose Son of Chamber Symphony Mark Morris uses for his new Joyride. I wish I could find something profound to say about it. Isaac Mizrahi's tight and metallically shiny goldish-hued unitards (with legs cut at lengths varying from full-length up to hooker hot-pants) were fun, and most likely the grandest display of gold lamé on City Center's stage since Martha Graham's Halston days. Each dancer had anchored on his or her chest a box displaying a rapidly changing, single-digit number. I kept on trying to find some rhyme or reason in their progression (prime numbers?), but soon realized I was too mathematically illiterate to spot their logic, if any. Morris' dances are never without interest, and liked how he'd often move his dancers at a slow, half-tone beat against Adam's burbling rush; presenting his dancers in big, slow pliés in second, perhaps a commentary on Adams' work? I liked the informal rushing and casual virtuosity of the eight dancers (Martyn Garside, Dana Genshaft, Ruben Martin, Elizabeth Minor, Pascal Molat, James Sofranko, Jennifer Stahl and Sarah van Patten), the craft of Morris' building on a foundation of a few basic motifs (like that plié), and the familiarly disingenuous way he'd have dancers simply walk on and off stage between their "dancey" bits. This Joyride was, yes, pleasant and meandering, but also without destination. From Morris I expect more wit and less cleverness.

The high point of the evening, not surprisingly, was Balanchine's masterpiece, The Four Temperaments. Although 4Ts has been in SFB's repertory for over thirty years, this particular crew presented it with the careful precision of the newly taught, or freshly coached. The corps showed a wonderful unity of purpose and synchronicity of movement. They also easily kept up with David Briskin's semi-eponymous conducting. (The second part of Melancholic was surprisingly zippy.) I admired the San Franciscans' alacrity and correctness, but it wouldn't hurt if they sometimes colored a bit outside the lines.

The soloists belied that they were the ballet's second cast, except for Pascal Morat's stiff, overstarched Melancholic. Melancholic suffers from a lack of backbone, both figuratively and literally: it's replete with drooping shoulders, flopping backs, and an aversion to the straight and vertical. Too often, Morat's back was stiff as an ironing board. For instance, in Melancholic's signature, half-twisting fall backwards to the stage, Morat wasn't pulled back and down by his crumpling back, with no suggestion that perhaps the sky was falling on him; instead he carefully tripped over an invisible garden hose. He's not an incapable dancer, just badly miscast. However, the little detachment of women confronted and confined him with admirably knife-edged severity.

By contrast, in Sanguinic, Vanessa Zahorian and Joan Boada crackled, and snapped and popped with power and thematic clarity. Zahorian's coltish enthusiasm softened her strength's athletic edge; she's well-matched with the similarly eager Boada. Theirs is a brighter shade of sanguine than I'm used to with City Ballet, where the Sanguinic couple sometimes looks unsure of why it's there. No such ambiguities here; Zahorian and Boada were there to dance, and gladly. They smiled and bounded with a joy evocative of the third movement in Symphony in C (if they don't dance that together, they ought to). I particularly liked the way Zahorian floated like a windblown soap bubble across the stage in her small, airborne solo, with two beautiful, delicate and cleanly described gargouillades.

If Molat's Melancholic disappointed, Damian Smith's Phlegmatic thrilled. His loose-jointed, floppy-limbed physique portrayed Phlegmatic's waverings between introversion and extroversion with both careful articulation and broad brushstrokes. His pose with one foot nestled high in his hand made a king of kinetic sense I haven't seen lately in New York; indeed, Smith's intense focus put to shame the casual indifference of City Ballet's Albert Evans. Alana Altman's tall, authoritative Choleric easily captured the stage, especially with her climactic rondes de jambe a terre, where the sweep of her leg asserts her dominion. The ballet's final images, of women lifted skyward above the corps' churning sea, was as effective and moving as any I'd seen.

I hope San Francisco Ballet will visit New York more often, and stay longer.