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| Program 5 |
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| SF BALLET 2008 75TH ANNIVERSARY |
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| In this program, watch the art of the modern Pas de deux evolve before your eyes. Christopher Wheeldon presents the ultimate in melting, romantic chemistry. Helgi Tomasson's World Premier - His Pas de deux find a new voice with every work. Wayne McGregor shows us how the Pas de deux is executed by dancers who seem to be just getting to know what the human body can do. |
| CriticalDance Program 5 |
| Carousel (A Dance) - Christopher Wheeldon / last performed in 2007 Pas de deux from After the Rain - Christopher Wheeldon / New in 2008 World Premier - On a Theme of Paganini - Helgi Tomasson / New in 2008 Eden/Eden - Wayne McGregor / last performed in 2007 |
| Opening-Friday: 3/7/08 A Wheeldon work of far more whimsy, "Carousel (A Dance)," opened the program. Sarah Van Patten put her girlish femininity and fine acting skills to use again in one of her best roles, opposite gruff-but-adoring Pierre-Francois Vilanoba in this adaptation of the Richard Rodgers music. Chemistry ... mournful, tender - suffused Yuan Yuan Tan and Damian Smith in the pas de deux from Christopher Wheeldon's "After the Rain." Last year, I was so overwhelmed by the pair's sculptural sublimity that I hardly registered Wheeldon's choreographic craftsmanship; watching for it only intensifies the poignancy of a duet so intimate, it is almost painful to behold. Like most of Tomasson's neoclassic oeuvre, "On a Theme of Paganini" will hardly stand accused of theatrical outlandishness. Neil Peter Jampolis' lighting design is a light-flooded field of gray, and Martin Pakledinaz's costumes have a subtle industrial feel - the women's short dresses have silver metallic bodices...It does offer pleasures - Music Director Martin West and the orchestra, with Roy Bogas as pianist, and the swooning famous 18th variation featuring Maria Kochetkova. The sweet innocence that made her "Giselle" heartbreaking proves magical again here, as Kochetkova kisses Davit Karapetyan's forehead and curls up so tiny inside his burly arms. Vanessa Zahorian has a more thankless assignment in a pas de trois with swashbuckling Joan Boada and Pascal Molat. She is her usual gracious, technically unassailable self, but she makes an odd match with Kochetkova,.. Wayne McGregor's cloning parable "Eden/Eden," to Steve Reich's "Dolly," is apocalypse at its most wearying, but the cast never flags in attacking McGregor's slam-bam, double-jointed movement. Tan stepped into the indomitable Muriel Maffre's old role, while Jaime Garcia Castilla shone in his prophet-like solo, and young Anthony Spaulding slinked among far more seasoned company like a veteran. "Eden/Eden" is striking at first view with its nearly nude costumes and futuristic bells and whistles, but it's a ballet you only need to see once. The mood in the opera house reflected that. No one would miss "Eden/Eden" much, I think, except these hungry dancers./ Review |
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| Suday Mat: 3/9/08 Dores Andre was the Julie and Boada the Billy Bigelow figure in Christopher Wheeldon�s 2002 Carousel (A Dance), set to Richard Rodgers� eternally lovable score, and their youthful ardor raised the temperature. No doubt about it: Andre, a corps dancer from Spain is enjoying a banner season. If Wheeldon traces the eruption of first love so tellingly in Carousel (A Dance), he probes a more complex relationship with sculptural mastery in the pas de deux from the 2005 After the Rain. Arvo P�rt�s austere piano-violin score (rendered by Roy Malan and Michael McGraw) delivers us to a landscape where the unpredictable is commonplace, and, again Sunday, Yuan Yuan Tan and Damian Smith were the magnificent guides to a place where shape-shifting lifts and supports seem infused with an almost moral force. I doubt if we will see anything more jaw-dropping or logical than the final moments of this duet. It has always been a mystery to me why more choreographers have not availed themselves of Rachmaninov�s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. ..The piece has not been entirely ignored, I can recall Frederick Ashton�s Rhapsody, a late career gift to Mikhail Baryshnikov ..This is no chamber essay, the piece calls for five principals, six demi-soloists and a mixed corps of 12. ..In Tomasson�s work, the ballerinas, Maria Kochetkova and Vanessa Zahorian, etch the theme in mirror formation, and Tomasson derives a modicum of tension from the contrast between Zahorian�s brilliant attacks and Kochetkova�s softer, more rubato-laden manner. The florid arms look like a thematic image. A duality emerges: Zahorian is hoisted and manipulated by Joan Boada and Pascal Molat in a bravura trio. Kochetkova meets a gentler fate in the hands of Davit Karapetyan, who lifts her softly, rocks in place, cradles her in his arms and kisses her sweetly during the familiar 18th variation, all the more enjoyable for its air of predictability. Sunday�s audience proved wonderfully receptive to the multimedia onslaught of Wayne McGregor�s bracing, provocative Eden/Eden. Tan and Tiit Helimets have not completely effaced memories of predecessors Muriel Maffre and Gonzalo Garcia, but their dancing and that of their colleagues (who include Katita Waldo, Jaime Garcia Castilla, Anthony Spaulding and the apparently inexhaustible Molat) was never less than sensational in the choreography which owes something, but not everything to William Forsythe. Gary Sheldon conducted the instrumental and vocal ensemble in the Reich./ VOD Review |
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| Helgi Tomasson's "On a Theme of Paganini," which followed, gave love numerous beautiful shadings that veered from the individual to the group and back again. The sparkling quintet of Maria Kochetkova, Vanessa Zahorian, Joan Boada, Davit Karapetyan and Pascal Molat married the zest of Robbins to the purity of Balanchine. Rachmaninov's lush score was pulled from the brink of excess by Tomasson's Calvinist cool, while the whole was delicately designed by Martin Pakledinaz in Apollonian shades of white, twilight grey, Prussian blue and lilac./ CC Review |