recent SFB reviews more Renouf reviews Renee's web site

Tomasson created the ballet in 1991 for the "Mozart and His Time Bicentennial Celebration" with Elizabeth Loscavio as the ballerina, and, I think, Anthony Randazzo, the principal male dancer. Loscavio was still in her late teens, but her technical capacity and speed is clearly marked in the assignments taken over by Kristin Long.

Parrish Maynard distinguished himself in the male lead. While slightly built, his is an easy classicism with distinct finish, a substantial jump, good battement and neat, pointed feet. His jete in attitude often has a touch of the soaring in it.

Long exudes a warm feminine quality which hints at the largesse of a Fonteyn, but is not yet nearly so aware of herself in relation to space or the diagram of a work. She simply dances very well and with some measure of brio. In the second movement, she worked with the three male demi-soloists Peter Brandenhoff; Steven Norman; Damian Smith while Maynard danced with Julie Diana; Sherri LeBlanc and Leslie Young.

An interesting thought crossed my mind while watching the successive exchange of dancers and the principals. It almost seemed as if the "Haffner" was an opportunity to watch specific dancers essay the thin line between corps and soloist status via this classical essay. The men's capacity to partner as well as to perform as a trio certainly is obvious.

Solo
Music: Johann Sebastian Bach
Choreography: Hans van Manen
Dancers: David Palmer; Stephen Legate; Guennadi Nedviguine

What a workout van Manen provided the company's male soloists in this introduction to the San Francisco Ballet repertoire. It gives every indication of being a benchmark for performers staying power as well as virtuosity. I must say that the three were entirely up to it, with a difference: Palmer and Legate dance informed by modern dance influence; Nedviguine dances as if it were a classical assignment. It was, of course, both because that is in the nature of van Manen's choreography. (I am still quite in love with van Manen's "Five Tangos by Piazolla" and wish it was in the company's repertoire when Alexi Zuberia was dancing here. He performed it when he won the silver medal at Jackson in 1982.)

The trio is a dizzy one, proceeding at breakneck speed, virtuosic moments for each, to be followed by another equally dazzling, winding up with the three in staggering unison. Keso Dekker's grey sweats with scarlet teeshirts with hints of mustard yellow, orange and red underneath emphasized the athletic nature of the virtuosity. It is not a work one expects garbed in a cavalier's tunic.

The Lesson
Music: George Delerue
Choreography: Flemming Flindt
Dancers: Julia Adam; Yuri Possokhov; Anita Paciotti

When San Francisco Ballet moonlighted in three Bay Area locations, "The Lesson" got its company premiere in 1996 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. I saw Julia Adam as the Pupil, Anita Paciotti as The Pianist. Anthony Randazzo gave The Professor a remarkable portrait..

February 4 the demented pedagogue was danced by Yuri Possokhov, surely one of the most remarkable dance theatre portraits ever created San Francisco Ballet's organization. I remember someone asking if I had seen Possokhov dance it; now I know why. I wish San Francisco Ballet had the funds to televise Possokhov in the role; it is a portrait to be recorded for history.

One needs to have seen Possokhov in a classical or virtuoso role to understand his impact as The Professor. His Bolshoi training and bearing, unforced -minus the melodrama and self- aggrandizement many Russians exhibit, have given his physical capacity to embody emotion a superb technical framework. This grandeur is poured into a slightly hunched posture, convex chest with nervous gestures of the hands just short of nail biting in their compulsiveness. The hair is slicked down and the Jens-Jacob Worsaae has designed a striped shirt, white collar, black string tie and brocade vest which clearly mark him as belonging to the orbit of Franz Kafka.

Paciotti, in a black slack suit, her hair equally severe, marches around the studio space, picking up strewn paper, spilled chairs and throwing back the curtain covering the mirror while the door bell rings impatiently to the command of a dancer whose feet can be seen through the window accomplishing impatient degages during her wait. She has fiddled with toe shoes left on the upright piano, but she tosses them behind the piano before she opens the door.

Julia Adam comes bounding in sporting red shoes and filled with glorious fantasies of dance. The Pupil waltzes around the studio, plays with her toe shoes, imagining, in all probability, an enchanting flirtation with The Professor.

When The Professor emerges all a twitch, she is puzzled, but right on, front, center, mimicking, almost parodying, The Professor's gestures. Between The Pupil's pert, semi-cheeky qualities, and the wide-eyed, floating remoteness of The Professor flits a major textural differentiation. Tension between The Pianist and The Professor might be enough to arouse The Pupil's curiosity, but, alas, not her suspicion. Dance is a divine disease which lures us all to varying degree.

The lapse of time is only suggested. It begins to manifest when The Pupil grows tired in her newly donned pointe shoes. When she ties them on, she, unknowingly, has reached the point of no return.

What was so extraordinary was to observe the increasing distortion of Possokhov's expression, until, when killing The Pupil, his sensitive face became literally disfigured, and, only, confronted by The Pianist, whom he had shoved off stage, The Professor's visage resumes the normal blank, floating and often fearful expression.

The body is moved off, the door bell rings and the process begins again as the curtain falls.

Glass Pieces
Music: Philip Glass
Choreography: Jerome Robbins

Jerome Robbins assisted with the production design and it is intriguing to try to fathom the concept which led to a gridwork for the scenic design. With the corps walking, almost marching across the stage in varying degrees of practice costumes, Robbins seems to suggest the contemporary city worker. Most of the movement is horizontal, but some comes on the diagonal They also begin to include variations, like a swift plie in grand second.