OAKLAND—With more lives than the proverbial cat, the Oakland Ballet sprang back to life once more with a diverting mini-concert in its inaugural Dancing Moons Festival. Its Asian program came out like dim sum, with manifold sweets and suites—piano solos, South Indian dance, a significant revival, a balancing act and—oh yes, ballet too. And the fearless dancers made a go of it despite a small hall that is more auditorium than performance venue.

Leaving a lasting impression was the ambitious revival of a French court pantomime entertainment nearly three centuries old, originally an Orientalist farce: “The Teapot Prince” (Ballet des Porcelaines). Banking on the surviving original libretto and music, choreographer Phil Chan worked out a mini-drama for three, involving stylized knife fights and a magician turning people into porcelain. Playing the Princess was the most expressive of all the Oakland dancers, Karina Eimon, who clearly had theatrical training too, right down to facial expressions lamentably rare in ballet today.

Former OB veteran Michael Lowe choreographed the night’s biggest number, for which the upright piano had to be shoved off the tight stage to create space. His fluid “Ebb Tide” featured the lanky and pliant Alberto Andrade opposite five women in aquamarine costumes.

Also of note was the co-created “Falling with You” spotlighting the appealing Jazmine Quezada and Lawrence Chen as lead dancers, and then what is destined to be forever called the “zoom” ballet by Caili Quan, who choreographed and guided the dancers via a coast-to-coast Zoom connection in “Layer upon Layer,” with Ashley Thopiah joining Quezada and Chen in an engrossing trio. Not to be forgotten was the nimble, petite ballerina Paunika Jones, carefully tossed about by that giant Andrade in two works.

And by way of South India came a bharata natyam solo dance. As performed by the alluring guest Ahana Mukherjee, the piece emphasized upper-body and arm moves, supplemented by flashing eyes, and bells on the legs supplementing the music of the late Pandit Chitresh Das.

The festival’s unpretentious opening night was received by an audience of some 150 at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center, assembled by the OB’s Artistic Director Graham Lustig in response to hate crimes against the AAPI community in various locales over the past year.

Dancing Moons Festival, with Oakland Ballet and varied attractions. March 24-26 at Oakland Asian Cultural Center, then the Bankhead Theater Livermore April 1-2. Tickets via Dancing Moons Festival Tickets, Multiple Dates | Eventbrite . For further OB info: www.oaklandballet.org.

Click to share our review: