GOING FRENCH, SEIWERT STEPPING UP AT THE BALLET
We tumble and we fumble, and then we meet the compact Smuin Ballet which has emerged from the pandemic seemingly unscathed. Its newest Bay Area run showed off 17 beautifully coordinated and trained dancers in pieces new and old, bursting with precision and energy.
Purists may carp about the troupe’s leanings toward the commercial, but this group under Celia Fushille offers both sides, serving up contemporary with a capital C, abetted by the new associate director and adroit choreographer Amy Seiwert.
The engrossing opening program offered the wake-up call via a twin-barrel blast of culture: Val Caniparoli’s earth-shaking foray into a stormy percussive world, and Seiwert’s light-hearted world premiere to French songs so much in the spirit of founder Michael Smuin. (Smuin in early years had actually performed as a night-club-show duo with partner-spouse Paula Tracy—not exactly your typical dancer’s CV.)
Seiwert’s piece “French Kiss” showed itself as airy as a sunny Sunday on the Champs-Élysées, with skirts in alluring sherbet-pastel colors, whirled about by cosmopolitan sophisticates. The dozen players flowed on and off stage as smooth as silk, mostly in pairs. No, no kisses, but a lot of youthful exuberance to French songs from the Pink Martini ensemble. Perhaps with a bow to Magritte, a group of dancers hit the stage flourishing black umbrellas, evolving into part of the whimsical décor.
Another Seiwert-only touch was the mannequin pas de deux, so appropriate for these AI days, with life-size plastic figures wheeled around by flesh-and-blood partners.
This sure-fire crowd-pleaser capped the first night at the Lesher Center. And yet what bowled me most over was Caniparoli’s rugged ritual “Swipe” (2011), as jostling as driving with four flat tires. The bold shoulder swivel-thrusts and bobbing necks had me instinctively flexing muscles dormant for ages.
The performers provocatively raised and worked hands on high—I couldn’t tell whether they were waving to Aunt Matilda in the 12th row or simply satirizing empty political speeches, which already anticipate 2024. The high point April 28 was a pairing of Cassidy Isaacson and João Sampaio, nimble and athletic to the core.
Among Caniparoli’s quirky enigmas came a woman’s extended leg (Isaacson again) doing a breath-taking full-360 like a sweep-second hand of a clock, in a display of flexibility par excellence, one that’s very rarely done on stage.
The program opened with Katarzyna Skarpetowska’s “Sextette” for four women and two men dancing to Bach, memorable for the skyward leaps of Ricardo Dyer, a dabbler in lofty elevation. In between, Smuin’s duet “Dream” was a vehicle for ballerina Tessa Barbour in a long voluptuous formal, later partnered by the Brazilian flash Sampaio.
Of note in this program was the meticulous preparation of the ensemble, with letter-perfect formations, pliable bodies, and ballet moves to remember.
Casts change nightly. All the music was prerecorded. Seiwert, just promoted to associate artistic director, turned up at intermission to meet patrons, along with Fushille, in a refreshing turnabout from those troupes that rarely show their directors offstage.
SMUIN CONTEMPORARY BALLET opening April 28-29 at Walnut Creek’s Lesher Center, then San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center May 5-14, and Mountain View’s CPA May 25-28. In SCB’s 29th season. Details online, www.smuinballet.org.
