San Francisco Ballet's NY season
The glorious, annual Lincoln Center Festival, that occupied 7 theaters in the Lincoln Center area during its 2006 season, presented a commissioned opera, dance, drama, music, music theater, and a scanners/video festival. The dance offerings included Elizabeth Streb's "Streb vs. Gravity;" Bill T. Jones' multimedia work, "Blind Date;" three contemporary dance companies from Israel: Batsheva Dance Company, Emanuel Gat Dance, Yasmeen Godder Dance Theater; and the San Francisco Ballet, under the direction of Helgi Tomasson.
The West Coast has been the cradle of modern dance: Duncan, Denishawn (from which Graham, Humphrey, and Weidman danced away), Lester Horton, May O'Donnell, as well as ballet where the Christensen brothers, Lew (who was Balanchine's first American "Apollo") and Willam, who founded the 73- year old San Francisco Ballet. Tomasson, who took over the SF company in 1985, was discovered by Jerome Robbins on his tour of Iceland with his Ballets: USA. Robbins arranged a scholarship for him at the School of American Ballet (Tomasson requires his dancers to wear pointe shoes as Balanchine did), where he was seen as a quiet, serious student and who became a principal dancer in New York City Ballet, 1970-1985. In the 1960s, he had performed in the Joffrey and Harkness Ballets, where he excelled in the Bournonville works staged for Harkness by Eric Bruhn.
SF's opening night performance to display the company's versatility included a number of excerpts from works by Forsythe, Bintley, Tomasson, Possokhov, and Balanchine ("Harlequinade"). Other excerpts were from the works of Caniparoli, Kudelka, Lubovitch, and Robbins. A full-evening of the Mark Morris version" Sylvia," followed in three evenings.
The last two performances were the mixed repertory program: Tomasson's "7 for Eight" a cool, classical, clean work to 4 J.S. Bach piano concerti. A pas de deux performed by Yuan Yuan Tan (China) and Yuri Possokhov (Bolshoi, who will become SF's resident choreographer after this season) was delicious morsel. Tan is a young, willowy, lyrical, appealing performer. Other well-mannered and well-schooled dancers in this international company and included in the work were, Joan Boada (Cuba), Tina LeBlanc (USA), Gonzalo Garcia (Spain), Elizabeth Miner (Miami City Ballet) and Rachel Viselli (USA).
Christopher Wheeldon, NYCB's resident choreographer, in his "Quaternary" to composers Cage, Pärt, Bach, and Steven Mackey, inserted his usual small jokes that make some titter. In this work, a couple hugged and swayed for a few seconds in ballroom movements. The work, named for the four seasons, contained a mystifying pas de deux for Muriel Maffre (France, tall, sexless, double-jointed) with Possokhov. Perhaps the work takes a few viewings before it can be put into place.
American-born William Forsythe, who found a home in Germany and who has been seen here with his company in many innovative forms, was presented in his "Artifact Suite," to music by Bach and Eva Grossman-Hecht. It was a great final work with genuine humor, superb dancing by the entire company in militaristic formations with a pas de deux breakout here and there. A black curtain weighted by a wooden trim, hilariously banged down every now in then in the middle of a scene as if the choreographer decided "that's enough of that, let's do it over." It was dramatic fun. The partners, Maffre and Pierre-François Vilanoba and Cuba's Lorena Feijoo with Pascal Molat were the breakouts from the mesmerizing, staccato of the marching. Forsythe is a masterful avant-guardist, who has more to give us.
Audiences seem to take to the San Francisco Ballet with immediate and warm response to their uniform high level of technique, energy and individuality.