pherank

What are hou hoping to see?

For the lazy reader (of which I am one), or the time-challenged reader, I highly recommend the multi-volume series by the New Yorker: The 40s: The Story of a Decade The 50s: The Story of a Decade The 60s: The Story of a Decade I particularly like the 40s collection, which includes John Hersey's Pulitzer prize-winning "Hiroshima", which I wish was mandatory reading for all college freshmen, and "PT-109" which details JFK's wartime 'adventure' (far more harrowing than many realize), Lilian Ross on the Nuremberg Trials, the Miss America Pageant and the Red Scare in Hollywood; A.J. Liebling on the Fall of France (reporting from France), and more… We're all used to reading about events after the fact, with the benefit of hindsight, but it can be particularly poignant to read someone's commentary while they're in the thick of things. The "60s" volume has a number of excellent articles concerning the student free speech movement, and civil rights-related subjects. There is a Calvin Trillin piece titled "Youth in Revolt" (from Letters From Berkeley), which is particularly interesting/depressing/informative, as it relates to our current political upheavals.

Never say never. Now is the time to "see her work" since she's going to get consistently more interesting parts as a soloist. I remember that her brother (whom she is very close to) left to go somewhere like the HET or Royal Danish Ballet - maybe as a trainee or apprentice? That has to have been hard for Jahna. I hope she's been able to make good friends among the other dancers. SFB is going through a painful but inevitable changing of the guard. First the senior male danseurs have been retiring, and now many of the senior women. It's hard for those of used to seeing, and rooting for, a particular group of soloists. The real question is whether Tomasson can maintain as high a standard of dancing and partnering as we've been used to in the last 10 years - in all styles of dance. That takes special people.

SFB has announced: "Isabella DeVivo trained at the School of American Ballet before attending SF Ballet School as a trainee. Since joining the Company as a member of the corps de ballet in 2013, she has danced featured or principal roles in Tomasson’s Giselle, Nutcracker, Romeo & Juliet, and Swan Lake in addition to works by Balanchine, Caniparoli, Peck, and Scarlett. She created corps de ballet roles in Tomasson’s Caprice and Thatcher’s Manifesto, among others. Jahna Frantziskonis joined SF Ballet as a corps de ballet member in 2015 following three seasons with Pacific Northwest Ballet, where she also trained. At SF Ballet, Jahna has danced principal or featured roles in works by Tomasson, Balanchine, Scarlett, and Wheeldon and, in the 2016 Season, she made her debut as Olga in Cranko’s Onegin and created a corps de ballet role in Peck’s In the Countenance of Kings. Please join us in congratulating Isabella and Jahna on their promotions and look for them in upcoming performances of Balanchine's Stravinksy Violin Concerto in Must-See Balanchine on March 17 and in Scarlett's Fearful Symmetries in Contemporary Voices on March 18."

From SFB: Honoring Lorena Feijoo, Davit Karapetyan, and Vanessa Zahorian Join us for two special, one-night-only Farewell Performances on Saturday, April 15 at 7 pm and Tuesday, April 18 at 7:30 pm Principal Dancers (and married couple) Davit Karapetyan and Vanessa Zahorian are dancing a Farewell Performance of Tomasson’s Swan Lake on Saturday, April 15 at 7 pm. Principal Dancer Lorena Feijoo's Farewell Performance will be part of an existing performance of Made for SF Ballet on April 18. Added to the program will be a pas de deux from Liam Scarlett’s Hummingbird, which Lorena will perform with a partner. “Each of these three dancers is extraordinary, and we will miss seeing them on the Opera House stage,” says SF Ballet Artistic Director and Principal Choreographer Helgi Tomasson. We look forward to celebrating them on these two, very special occasions.”

"I could only speculate on what brought McFall to replace Balanchine's, which Atlanta danced at one time, I found his production charming and--in broad strokes--quite traditional with the nice scenic touch of being set in Russia" My guess, is that Gennadi and Possokhov have both been influenced by Tomasson's idea to locate the Nutcracker action in the current location - a golden, genteel Atlanta of the past. That worked well in San Francisco. Or, to avoid racial controversies, the piece could be located in an indeterminate Land of Sweets a la Ratmansky and Ryden's new Whipped Cream. The fact that both A.D. and choreographer are Russian probably will NOT result in a Russia-centered Nutcracker. But who knows? Maybe they are both tired of that particular ploy too. "A Possokhov Don Quixote? I assume that's the same as the Joffrey Possokhov Don Q I found listed--but wasn't sure of it's relation to the SF ballet production credited to Tomasson and Possokhov" Tomasson has used Possokhov to help out with the many dances in full-length ballets. Romeo and Juliet would be another in which Tomasson enlisted Possokhov's aid (this was shown in North American theaters more than once - I thought it was a very effective production). This partnership is in the Petipa/Ivanov tradition, I guess you could say. ;) "I've been a big champion of Atlanta ballet dancing substantive ballet-centric programs, but was really imagining more neo-classical works -- not quite such a leap into the deep- or, rather, '19th-century' end of the pool as a full length Don Quixote let alone a stab at any part of Swan Lake." I don't think Gennadi is at all down on Neo-Classical works, but it may be true that he shown particularly well in character-based roles, so some of his interests may lie in that direction. And he seems to recognize that the Atlanta dancers are lacking any real training in that area. Mime skills are useful in story ballets, so what the heck? There's a lot of work to be done there. Possokhov's Firebird (upcoming) would be the perfect example of a shorter ballet that requires some basic acting skills, but should be totally doable if the dancers have any acting talent. That is going to be interesting to hear about - do the dancers have the talents to bring it off properly - will they be believable? Or does it degrade into something kitschy and amateurish?

"After 21 years, the Atlanta Ballet’s traditional holiday production of “Nutcracker,” as choreographed by former artistic director John McFall, will have its final run this year. New artistic director Gennadi Nedvigin has commissioned Yuri Possokhov, resident choreographer with San Francisco Ballet, to create a new version of the holiday classic, set for a 2018 premiere." http://www.myajc.com/entertainment/arts--theater/beloved-version-nutcracker-ends-with-2017-atlanta-ballet-season/SQNFByQFjnJy12RKxySAYN/ More inevitable changes - hopefully Possokhov will come through with a really worthwhile production. I do wonder if it's a little soon though to redo The Nutcracker given that those productions are so tradition bound. If, after a couple of years, people are really excited about Gennadi's new programs, then it might be a better time to make the change. Just a thought.

Agreed - Macaulay appreciates Ratmansky's ballets more often than not. But he could do worse. Is it a surprise that Macaulay did not fly to San Francisco to see the new Arthur Pita premiere? Instead, he went to LA to see more Ratmansky. I'm sure he's not disappointed with his choice, though. ;) Perhaps forum members will tell us more about what they thought of the choreography...

I would think Macaulay would have savaged the choreography if it was, in fact, complete fluff, but he certainly didn't do that in his review: "Especially in Mr. Ratmansky’s dances, abundant marvels of style keep turning the light story into poetry. Although Ballet Theater has presented many new Ratmansky productions since 2009, this one goes furthest in making the company look more brilliantly refined than ever. Though there are exciting steps here, all of them come in intricate, dense phrases. The upper body continually complements the lower body; torsos tip, twist and fold; wrists circle and flourish; angles of the head and eyes are a constant pleasure. Not all Strauss’s dances have easy dance meters, but Mr. Ratmansky invests some of the trickiest sequences with a rhythmic structure that feels inevitable." It's always aggravating to hear that a libretto is poorly organized, or overly simplistic. But in this case, it sounds like the Ryden visuals are adding a significant layer of their own. Maybe that's enough?

He's definitely aware that she had created a number of previous works. He seems to be implying something else, though, by his use of the term "commission". Was Bond not paid for those previous works? Myles Thatcher, at SFB, has created a number of short pieces that are used in the student showcases (and he created a contemporary piece for use by Greco and Sheehan in the Erik Bruhn competition), but I don't know if there's any payment for these efforts - just credit.

A Rubies rehearsal with Lamb and McBride (Patricia Neary coaching) was filmed by the Royal Ballet - the interviews are enjoyable too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7UOls9Vq0E Masha danced Diamonds for one night with SFB, then flew to London to dance in the gala. The life of a star...

How is this for working outside one's comfort zone? Bolshoi is working on Robbin's The Cage as part of their March live broadcast. Don’t Look Pretty! Staging a Feral Robbins Ballet at the Bolshoi https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/14/arts/dance/interview-bolshoi-ballet-staging-jerome-robbins-the-cage.html 'What is it like to work with dancers whose training is so different? I find it fascinating. You want to give them a sense of what the choreographer wanted. So you don’t want to change their schooling, but you want to change their attack. I try to emphasize dynamics in their dancing more. Balanchine used to say to me, “Jean-Pierre, you’re young — move big, big.” And he’s right. Otherwise, you look like you’re dancing on a postage stamp. At City Ballet, the women are so excited to dance this ballet. Is that true at the Bolshoi? I don’t know! I can’t tell. At New York City Ballet, the girls love it. They love the hair. They love the whole idea of it. They feel like they have their ballet. [Laughs] I’m just hoping I get this here. It’s hard for them. I always say: “Don’t worry about looking pretty. The stranger you look, the better.”'

NYT article on Whipped Cream: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/arts/dance/alexei-ratmansky-whipped-cream-american-ballet-theater.html 'Mr. Ratmansky discovered the music by chance in the early 1990s, when he spotted a CD on a trip to Japan soon after he and his wife, Tatiana Kilivniuk, had left Kiev to join the Winnipeg Ballet. “At the time, food was scarce in the Ukraine, you could buy nothing, and suddenly there was all this stuff,” he said. “Tatiana loves whipped cream and would run to the stores to buy those cans you can squirt. After I found the music, I did a little extract for a choreography workshop where I was the whipped cream and she was a little boy, eating it.” The music stayed in the back of Mr. Ratmansky’s mind, and a few years ago he began to discuss the project with Benjamin Millepied, at the time the director of the Paris Opera Ballet. “I felt very strongly that I needed a really powerful design element, because it’s a fantasy land that has to become a very specific world onstage,” Mr. Ratmansky said. “Benjamin and I had a lot of ideas, but we didn’t find the designer that both of us felt was it.”'

I confess I forget exactly where I read De Sola refer to her "husband", but I'm about 99% sure I did not dream it. They've been a couple for some time - that much is true. SFB is really good about protecting the company member's privacy. And that may have something to do with why these promotions are not usually done publicly. POB loves to generate P.R. around promotions, but SFB, under Tomasson, has always proceeded in a quieter manner. And come to think of it, Balanchine was known for doing these things behind the scenes (the dancer would read that they were now dancing a particular role, and then come to realize that they had been promoted, or hired into the company, etc.) I don't think that Tomasson is really imitating Mr. B., but it is certainly the Icelandic way to keep things quiet and simple. It just happens that one of the exceptions, would be this one: "During the second act of a performance on tour in London, SFB's Artistic Director, Helgi Tomasson, took the microphone to announce De Sola's promotion to Soloist!"

Excellent information, RG - thanks so much. I agree that the headpiece is an unusual riff on a kokoshnik: there are essentially two upright layers of what I will term "petal" shapes, with a rather large gap between them - if seen from the side. And there are some oddly placed tiny ornaments on some of these headpieces. The costume patterns look Byzantine to me - not much to remind me of the French Middle Ages. But it sounds like Georgiadis would be responsible for this look, and the costume would have originally been designed for POB productions, and came to be used by the Royal Ballet, ENB and SFB, among others.

Does anyone the origins of the Raymonda costume and wire headpiece used by a number of major companies? I never quite understood if the setting of the ballet was Hungary, or Spain. But I just read that it is set in the Provence region of France, though the Saracen Knight would most likely have been coming from Spain. The name "Raymonda" certainly doesn't sound French or Hungarian - the Internet tells me that the masculine form, Raymond, is derived from an Ancient Germanic name (Raimund). Anyway, The costume designs and wire headpiece are very distinctive but I can't immediately relate them to any ethnic garb. The ballet companies must be sharing the design of this popular costume. Perhaps someone knows more about the design and designer of this costume? https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8496/8298248352_14cd38423b_b.jpg http://ww3.hdnux.com/photos/12/34/24/2737430/9/1024x1024.jpg http://www.kashvili-images.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/344-2-Tamara-Rojo.-ENB.-Raymonda.-Photo-Kashvili.jpg https://c1.staticflickr.com/8/7421/9367423851_8e2a2a6d65_b.jpg https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/6d/9b/5f/6d9b5f2f314f4053e5626816379d332a.jpg

Thanks Terez! You've been able to see a lot of ballet lately, and that's a good thing, what with the "changing of the guard" happening now. If I had only known that 2015 - 2016 were going to be the golden era for SFB, I would have payed more attention. ;) Ann Murphy's Salome review http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/03/10/san-francisco-ballets-new-salome-has-david-lynch-style-touches/ Allan Ulrich's review http://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/S-F-Ballet-s-Salome-erotic-repellent-10992671.php Rita Felciano's review http://www.danceviewtimes.com/2017/03/a-double-treat-at-sfb.html Pita's work keeps getting compared to David Lynch's film/TV work. I have an appreciation for Lynch's large-scale film/TV work, which makes me ask myself - Does one dance to David Lynch? Well, there are two famous dances that occur in Twin Peaks, the first being Audrey Horne's dance at the diner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b64KyEFVhg And the other(s) being Leland Palmer's various song and dance moments, all of which are disturbing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_JutJRMSrc EDIT: And then there is the dancing dwarf in the Red Room - that dance, like the Leland Palmer dances, has a kind of Vaudeville song and dance reference to it. I'm not sure one can really make a ballet around such mentally/emotionally unstable moments and leave the audience feeling 'enriched' or even thrilled. But I'm all for giving something a try. I'm not sure we're going to see Pita's work again next year though. Pita may want to take the ballet to another company where it may be a better fit. I keep wondering if Mathilde Froustey is feeling bad that she's not able to dance the role, as was originally intended. I could never get a read on what she thought of the production and rehearsals, and usually, she expresses her appreciation for a good project without reservations. Salome would seem to fit her personality, but her reticence kept me wondering if she was having reservations about the whole project. I haven't seen Fusion myself, but it seems to fit the times we are in. Yuri's Whirling Dervish idea sounded like a good one. I saw Fearful Symmetries with a couple of different casts last year, and that was enough for me. Not enough depth; not enough explication of the music within the choreography. But Scarlett definitely has his fans.

We'd love to hear your thoughts about the production, Terez. Berman's review is certainly entertaining to read. There are many of us in the dance audience that do not want to see excessive "theater" injected into dance productions. That does seem to be the way of the world right now, though. Truly great choreography doesn't require the stage trappings, as we know, but this is the age of Media, and we're going to see a lot of these hybrid productions. I'm wondering if it makes sense to place Salome in the middle position - seems like more of an end of the evening piece. Although semantically speaking, I like that it comes between "Fusion" and "Fearful". I'm sure Tomasson was vexed about where to place this 'ballet'. And how will he measure success in this case?

Yes, congratulations to Max - well deserved. There were certainly hints that this was coming. His wife(?) is very proud: https://www.instagram.com/p/BRlrI2Dj2xl/?taken-by=sashadesola

I agree with what everyone is saying - it does look to be as much about Bolle as his "backup", La Scalla Ballet. Perhaps the idea is to create an ABT-style company at La Scala, and they just want foreign artists to feel they would always be welcomed there. ;) I'm not such a fan of the ABT company style, but many people love thinking they are going to see international "stars" of the ballet. I know La Scala has been struggling, but I don't know the details of what they are up against in Italy.

I really enjoyed Nunez in the Royal Ballet's Jewels live rehearsal broadcast. I would like to see her dance. But I still don't get a foreign tour that barely features the company's own principal dancers. That's a "WTF?" moment for me. There might be some feelings against inviting Carlo Di Lanno and Angelo Greco down from SFB to take part, as they formally left La Scala. OK, I can get that, but why depend upon guest artists? What exactly are they trying to show other countries?

The Program 5 Salome premiere, which I was forced to miss, went over well with dance writer Claudia Bauer http://dancetabs.com/2017/03/san-francisco-ballet-fusion-salome-premiere-fearful-symmetries-san-francisco/ "Herodias chooses John the Baptist, Aaron Robison on opening night, as the one who is to die, and Salome sets on him, by turns seducing and strangling him. André and Robison were a lioness and a gladiator, pitted in a dance battle from which only Salome will emerge in one piece. Both dancers seem to instinctively grasp Pita’s choreography, which is decadent and guttural, stripped of all extraneous movement and morally ambiguous." On Scarlett's Fearful Symmetries: "This year’s casting did give a deserving showcase to rising corps dancers Jahna Frantziskonis, Max Cauthorn and Esteban Hernandez; they and the rest of the strong cast elevated the work."

You are right - those productions shouldn't be set for the same dates. Considering the length of time that Southern Cal audiences have to wait to see some decent ballet, it just doesn't make sense. I also don't get "La Scala" opening with Copeland and Bolle dancing - it should be about their own current dancers.

If only it was for a few more years! Funnily enough, Kochetkova IS dancing Diamonds again, but not in SF - she's dancing with Tyler Angle at the London Coliseum in a Russian-themed gala program. https://www.instagram.com/p/BRhQRuNBd0P/?taken-by=balletrusse

Good points, Drew. I wouldn't mind if they just used a top-notch translator, standing off camera, to deliver at least a synopsis of what is being said. It would have to be done in a way that is unobtrusive though. The Bolshoi is not the type of organization to do anything and everything to please, but hopefully they have found their participation to be worthwhile in terms of P.R.