SF Ballet 2016: Program 5

[sf_herminator]

Casting for opening night (Wed 3/16) has been posted:

Program 5 - Wednesday, March 16, 2016 - 7:30pm—Opening Night

DANCES AT A GATHERING
Composer: Frédéric Chopin
Choreographer: Jerome Robbins
Piano: Roy Bogas

Pink/Purple: Yuan Yuan Tan, Davit Karapetyan
Mauve/Green: Vanessa Zahorian, Carlo Di Lanno
Yellow/Brown: Mathilde Froustey, Joseph Walsh
Blue/Blue: Sasha De Sola*, Steven Morse
Green/Brick: Lorena Feijóo, Vitor Luiz

SWIMMER
Composers: Shinji Eshima, Tom Waits, Kathleen Brennan, and Gavin Bryars
Choreography: Yuri Possokhov
Conductor: Martin West

The Swimmer: Taras Domitro
Maria Kochetkova, Tiit Helimets
Lorena Feijóo, Vitor Luiz
Yuan Yuan Tan
Wei Wang, Gennadi Nedvigin, Pascal Molat

Links: https://www.sfballet.org/tickets/casting

https://www.facebook.com/OdettesOrdeal/posts/1141495522550259? (with beautiful pictures from last year's performances)

I can't believe we are at the halfway point of the season!!

[pherank]

I guess then it is time to put in a plug for Possokhov's very intriguing and emotional Swimmer - well worth a look. I wish there was promo footage to truly do the complex production justice, but this promo made during the original rehearsals at least gives us some time with Yuri:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrB-iD7QkbM

(I"m hoping the ballet music is made available on CD, and a film of the production would be great too - but then I was hoping for a film of Shostakovitch Trilogy, and that didn't happen)

Paired with what is perhaps the best of Jerome Robbins, this should be an excellent night out at the ballet.

[pherank]

Rehearsing Dances at a Gathering:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BC_PQC0nrZE/?taken-by=lapetitefrench_

https://www.instagram.com/p/BCelny0HrTK/?taken-by=lapetitefrench_

[pherank]

Composer Shinji Eshima on Swimmer

http://sfballetblog.org/2016/03/composer-shinji-eshima-on-world-premiere-of-swimmer/

"Swimmer is the third ballet that I have composed for SF Ballet Choreographer in Residence Yuri Possokhov. The first was RAkU in 2011, which has since toured the globe and was also presented as part of Program 1 of the current season. When I first met Yuri on June 19, 2010 at the bar in Jardinere restaurant and he asked me to compose music for him, little did I know how our lives would be intertwined."

[SFCleo]

Casting for tonight!

Program 5 - Tuesday, March 22, 2016 - 7:30pm

DANCES AT A GATHERING
Composer: Frédéric Chopin
Choreographer: Jerome Robbins
Piano: Roy Bogas

Pink/Purple: Vanessa Zahorian, Luke Ingham
Mauve/Green: Mathilde Froustey, Carlo Di Lanno
Yellow/Brown: Frances Chung, Taras Domitro
Blue/Blue: Dores André, Sean Orza
Green/Brick: Lorena Feijóo, Hansuke Yamamoto

SWIMMER
Composers: Shinji Eshima, Tom Waits, Kathleen Brennan, and Gavin Bryars
Choreography: Yuri Possokhov
Conductor: Martin West

The Swimmer: Joseph Walsh
Dores André, Luke Ingham
Lorena Feijóo, Vitor Luiz
WanTing Zhao
Max Cauthorn, Daniel Deivison-Oliveira, James Sofranko

- See more at: https://www.sfballet.org/tickets/casting#sthash.WY6YM0XX.dpuf

[SFCleo]

Ok, so how was Program 5? Basically, enjoyable but not spectacular.

First of all, I couldn't believe this: a woman in the row in front of me, a few seats over, was wearing in her hair some kind of ornament decorated with flashing lights. 4 little LEDs I think, blinking in random order. At first I thought since it was close to her ear that it might be an assistive hearing device and didn't want to embarrass myself and/or her by drawing attention to it. However, it blinked all the way through Dances at a Gathering, NOT in time with the music and so at the intermission I asked the lady if she was aware that she had a flashing ornament in her hair. She apologized profusely and removed it right away. I really should have asked her if it had some purpose, like making her visible when walking at night!

Back to the dancing. Generally, I love Jerome Robbins' ballets, but I was not bowled over by Tuesday's performance of Dances at a Gathering. Listening to an hour of Chopin played by the wonderful Roy Bogas was sheer heaven, but somehow the dancers, with a few exceptions, did not live up to the music. One exception was Lorena Feijoo in Green, a fun part anyway, but she played with the rhythms of the music in such a way as to make the steps interesting, piquant, even. It was my first time seeing Mathilde Frosty (Mauve) and while I appreciated her clean execution, there was something joyless about her dancing -- maybe that's in the part, I don't know. Perhaps it was that she had to try to dance to Scherzo No. 1

which even I as a musician have trouble figuring out where the beats are!

I had heard enthusiastic reports of Possokhov's "The Swimmer" loosely based on the John Cheever story but was skeptical because P. is not one of my favorite choreographers -- I still haven't forgiven him for the crotch-fest that was "Rite of Spring". Well, no crotches in The Swimmer, so that was good. There was a hunky Joseph Walsh in the lead part, and great dancing from him and the SF ballet men. (I think P. choreographs much better for men than women). The music by Bay Area fixture Shinji Eshima was evocative and moved the story along, but I really didn't get P.'s use of Tom Waits songs, or perhaps the songs were ok but Tom Waits' delivery, which I love in other contexts, was just sort of confusing here. The multimedia show was beautifully done, although the references to Lolita, Nighthawks and Catcher in the Rye seemed a bit much. The fish girls were adorable https://www.instagram.com/p/BDUv_Kmsj8n/?taken-by=sfballet Theprojection of splashing waves that seemed ready to wash over the audience each time Walsh (seemed to) jump into a pool, was terrific. Weirdly, at the end, there was an image of Possokhov floating around in the ocean. I guess it was/is his story of sink or swim. Quite an experience.

[pherank]

First of all, I couldn't believe this: a woman in the row in front of me, a few seats over, was wearing in her hair some kind of ornament decorated with flashing lights.

I wish I could say, "only in San Francisco", but this kind of off-putting behavior seems to occur at live productions more and more. The weird part is how seemingly oblivious these people are to their own actions and appearance "(I have a model 747 crashed into an airplane hanger in my hair, but I've forgotten all about it!")

Swimmer can be described as a collage of 1960s associations - related only in that they individually mean something to Yuri P. So, a hodgepodge. Since there's only barest thread of a story line, I think Possokhov and composer Shinji Eshima mean for these various scenes and associations to be held together by music and mood. A modernist poem, rather than an actual short story. Cheever's The Swimmer was only the initial catalyst for Possokhov. I find it quite an enjoyable mass of stuff, but the moment I walked out of the theater, my mind began to try to figure out how to fix some of the organization problems, and weaker scenes. But the fact that I even cared to try to do that meant that what was working for me felt significant and worthy. Definitely this ballet makes best use of the men in the company, and the women don't get as much attention. The repertoire needs a few "male featured" pieces though, so I don't really object to that myself.

From what I've read, the Dances at a Gathering soloists have been rotating between the different colors/roles each performance, which could definitely mean that someone is hot one night, and cold the next.

Froustey often dances with a big smile on her face - if she's not smiling, then something is wrong. ;)

[Terez]

SFCleo, I very much enjoyed your review, and Pherank, your comment about the hair ornament made me laugh out loud.

I very much enjoyed "Swimmer" - I'd missed it last year, and was uncertain as to whether I'd jump on the "you have to see this!" train this time around. In the end, I did, although I missed some of the subtler references that my friend, a decade older than I, appreciated about culture in the '60's. Was that really an image of Possokhov at the end, floating in the ocean? Oh, wow, that went over my head entirely. What fun, though!

I am still shaking my head, chuckling, about that blinking hair ornament incident. That would have bothered the HELL out of me. I'm so very distractible, and while I think "Dances" is lovely, it always feels overlong to me, and somewhat repetitive by the end. What a gaffe on the woman's part (and tell me it was something she genuinely forgot she had on; could anyone be so obtuse as to think that a blinking ornament invisible to one's own eyes would be anything but an annoyance to all the people behind her?).