NEW BALLETS AS DRAMA, BUT ON SPEED
For the ballet’s 90th-season celebration, if you were looking for “A nice new white ballet,” forget it. The San Francisco Ballet came out with guns blazing, firing artistic six-shooters exuberantly in the air, and delving into deep drama where dance troupes often fear to tread. This was the new regime, loaded down with new thought-provoking works under new leadership, breaking with preconceived convention. It presented two story ballets as stormy as our the whirlwind winter weather among the three world premieres.
Some will argue that this is the wrong time for tragedies, with floods, war in the Ukraine, even homeowners out of their homes, and Covid still in the air. But clearly the new Tamara Rojo era is one to break barriers and stimulate, with much more pepper than sugar on this dance plate. Her 78 dancers also need to act convincingly, as this night they surely did.
The most memorable segment for us was Jamar Roberts’ haunting drama “Resurrection,” focusing not on the exultant finale of the similarly named Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, but rather on the dark, brooding first movement bristling with its electric chaos (in a cut-back version) and abrupt lightning bolts. Conductor Martin West illuminated the darkness.
Roberts’ foray into his underworld via very modern ballet had a sorceress (Doris André this night) manipulate her man (Isaac Hernández), as if a robot, in the gassy swirls of fog and gloom, all played out in purple-blue outfits and an aura of satanic mystery. High-energy couples perform in a beautiful fluidity of moves but in high agitation. A red vest is passed around marking the victim of the moment headed for human sacrifice, as if in “The Rite of Spring.” The swirling of high-energy couples and striking design media—mist, and shadow plays—produce an aura recalling unsettling tales of Edgar Allen Poe. The harridan—please don’t call her witch—herself becomes a victim.
This is another Antony Tudor “Dark Elegies” on a larger scale, only now running in toe shoes and on hi-test fuel, a work for 12 demanding to be presented again in future seasons. If you can’t sleep tonight, just blame the sinuous temptress Doris André. (But casts will rotate nightly.)
The finale work was Danielle Rowe’s ultra-modern “Madcap.” Its circus clowns going berserk have overtones of Gerald Arpino’s disturbing and violently insane “Clowns” of half a century ago, with Grand Guignol mixed in. Tiit Helimets this night played the beleaguered Clown, systematically demolished by the woman (Jennifer Stahl), who sometimes speaks her piece, with help from cohorts (Sasha de Sola, Parker Garrison). The music ranges from electronic to circus. Sorry, this one too will keep you awake, despite a closing segment suggesting that it was all the pagliacci’s nightmare. Rowe created here a mighty powerful nightmare, with the violence swirling out of the knot of entertainers moving like a maelstrom.
The program opened with Robert Garland’s decorous “Haffner Serenade,” a formal ballet seemingly linking the manner of Helgi Tomasson, who had directed the SFB for decades, with today’s Rojo era bent on lighting fires, even where there were none. Garland’s opus featured Isaac’s brother Esteban Hernández, who flew about with double tours, soft landings and impressive barrel turns.
Throughout, the troupe looked beautifully unified in movement and animated in execution.
The glaring misfire on the opener was the emphasis on gloom. Open with traditional ballet a la Helgi Tomasson, fine. Then a dark and spooky work, fine. Ending with—–no, not a jolly, upbeat finale sending all home happy, but rather yet another brow-furrowing tragic piece. Tilt!!! Too much of a bad thing?
The economies of the pandemic had forced the tune-out of cast lists for the patrons. But still they continue, to the detriment of the performers. If you ask who was that leading man or lady, and who was that choreographer, you must bring a smartphone, copy off a QR code on it from a lobby posting (if you can elbow other patrons aside). That all answers your questions—most likely, after you’re home and have long since forgotten your question. A generous printed program is still handed out—but without any cast lists.
BALLET NOTES—This Next@90 Festival comprises the three SFP programs through Feb. 7, with nine world premieres in all. The repertory season continues thereafter….Minorities were the creative choreographic spirits in the opener, with two black choreographers (Garland, Roberts) and one woman (Rowe). This opens up new doors in ballet, long dominated by predominantly lily-white dancers and creators…. The new artistic director Rojo is Spanish, born in Montreal, moved to Spain at age 4, and danced in London, becoming the longtime head of the English National Ballet. She is married to the new SFB dancer Isaac Hernández….The Jan. 19 opening-night gala, black ties and all, had featured four dance excerpts, two from forthcoming world-premiered works.
San Francisco Ballet’s Next@90 Festival, three programs through Feb. 7. Seen on Jan. 20. Opera House, S.F. For info: (415) 865-2000, or online www.sfballet.org.
