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San Francisco Ballet
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Magrittomania |
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The San Francisco Ballet concludes its repertory
season with a program that aptly describes the company today. There were three works: a Balanchine classic, a dance by a master
choreographer of today, and the work of a new choreographer. All of the pieces were revivals, performed with
the polish of a premiere and demonstrating the care the company takes with everything it
dances.
Mark
Morris’ Pacific, a work he created for SFB in 1995, is set to two movements of
a trio for violin, cello and piano by Lou Harrison.
A resident of northern California, Harrison was an early champion of gamelan music. His own compositions have an outward simplicity
and an inner complexity that present unusual challenges to the choreographer. Morris has responded with a dance that is pensive
without being lugubrious.
Like the title of the dance, the work has multiple connotations, which
are underscored by the costumes of Martin Pakledinaz.
The bare-chested men wear culottes—full, skirt-like pants that suggest the
native dress of Pacific Island and even Indian cultures; the women’s outfits have the
same full skirts with simple tops. Blues and
greens predominate, with red used for the central couple.
The colors evoke the ocean as well as tropical climes. The movement Morris uses also incorporates
suggestions of Asian cultures, particularly the Kathak style of southern India: the men (and later the women) repeat a gesture of
one arm raised in a curve, the other pointing straight in the opposite direction with the
head turned towards the pointing arm.
The choreography is complex, like the music. It is difficult to detect the patterns and
structure, as they go by so quickly. Despite
some vigorous movements, notably a high kick to the side, two gestures remain in the mind. One is a reach with both arms, the body stretching
forward. The other is a self-embrace. These convey longing, searching, and an impulse
for quietude. The cast gave a performance
that spoke of concentration and commitment. The
central couple, Joanna Berman and Damian Smith, were particularly effective. This is a work that makes you think about its
meaning.
Magrittomania was choreographed last year by company principal
dancer Yuri Possokhov. He has taken some of
the best-known images of Magritte (the anonymous man in the dark suit and bowler hat; the
face obscured by a large green apple; the woman with protruding, naked breasts; the couple
with their heads enshrouded) and made them move. The
music is by Russian composer Yuri Krasavin, who has taken selections from Beethoven
(notably the first piano concerto, as well as “Fur Elise” and the seventh
symphony) and given them an unreal, percussive edge.
With its constantly changing imagery and familiar yet distorted music,
the ballet is a successful embodiment of Magritte. If
one is inclined to look for meaning (an almost nihilistic view of life), that pursuit is
quickly interrupted by nonsense. There is a
charming dance for three men to music with a klezmer feeling (Guennadi Nedviguine led the
trio with panache). An enigmatic woman in
red dances with one arm behind her back. Two
large green apples float across the sky. This
is surrealism in the flesh. The woman in red
was danced by Yuan Yuan Tan, whose flexibility and poise were used to great effect. The role shows off her technical skills, as well
as her growing interpretive abilities. The
ballet begins and ends with the man in the bowler hat, but at the end the woman in red
reappears, this time holding the large green apple, which she explodes as the curtain
comes down. It was a suitably surprising
conclusion to a very effective work of theater.
The program ended with George Balanchine’s Symphony in C,
as uplifting a dance work as ever was created. Made
for the Paris Opera Ballet in 1947, Symphony in C is an expression by the
Balanchine who was still entrenched in the Petita tradition of classical ballet, but who
was beginning to find a new voice. When
compared to his equally masterful Theme and Variations, created a few months
earlier for American Ballet Theater, it already demonstrates some of the more
American-style freedom that characterized his later work.
Set to Georges Bizet’s youthful symphony, this ballet brims with life.
This work has been in SFB’s repertoire for forty years, and they
dance it better than ever. It is not every
company that can muster the depth of talent, not to mention the sheer number of dancers
required to be able to stage it. The first of
the four movements was led by Julie Diana and Pierre-Fran¨ois Vilanoba. Diana is a stiff dancer, and she misses the
amplitude that gives this role its special joy. Muriel
Maffre, partnered by Benjamin Pierce, gave an exquisite rendering of the second movement. Her serenity and musicality, coupled with her
beautiful line, made her performance memorable. The
lively third movement had Tina LeBlanc and Christopher Stowell as the leads. They are an ideal match—both sparkling
technicians—and they danced with great verve.
The fourth movement began with Sherri LeBlanc (Tina’s sister) and
Damian Smith, who introduced the musical theme. With each succeeding repetition of the
theme, Balanchine brings back the dancers of prior movements, one after the other, letting
them repeat signature movements of their earlier choreography. Then, for the fifth repetition of the theme, he
fills the stage with all of the women, a stunning stage picture with the corps on the
sides and the rear providing a frame for the principal dancers in the middle. The theme repeats again, and this time he brings
on the men. And then the entire cast, filling
the stage, brings the dance to an exhilarating close.
– Larry Campbell
