The stunning “Unbound” festival of the S.F. Ballet got added traction with its second program of premieres featuring inventive choreography, intriguing plot lines  and some brilliant dancing.

We had barely voiced our complaints this week about sterile, plotless ballets than this fresh-baked cornucopia “Unbound B” arrived from the SFB, as if tailor-made to silence snarky critics. This is a program to see and see again before its May 4 bow-out, showing some of the best new dance creations and interpretations  of recent seasons.

In this package of new pieces created by mid-career and emerging artists, the spotlight falls on the most inventive mind of England’s Cathy Marston. In “Snowblind,”she uses the oft-trod plot of a husband’s fatal attraction to a young servant girl and powers it irresistibly  with deft and original holds, turns and lifts of dancing couples—inventions that only a dancer could come up with. Even after the illicit couple has been left for dead in the snow, they produce, with the maddened wife, a zombie-like trio  whose unorthodoxy of Marston moves stays etched in a viewer’s memory.

The tale is based on the century-old Edith Wharton book “Ethan Frome,”with an apt collage score of music arranged by  Philip Feeney. The pillar for this title role is the towering Dane Ulrik Birkkjaer, a key addition to the SFB roster after the farewell of David Karpetyan last year.  HisEthan  strays from a loveless marriage to Zeena (Sarah van Patten) to the youthful, vibrant Mattie (Mathilde Froustey) in a scenario recalling work of past legend Agnes de Mille.

The fourth starring character is Snow, or rather a snowstorm, played by close to a dozen dancers in nebulous costumes, whirling and rolling about the stage, besetting and vanquishing the fleeing couple.

The dancing star of this night (April 25) was the tiny, ethereal Maria Kochetkova, a weightless being who takes off like a sparrow into high jetees flying over the Opera House stage. Although quite likely the shortest in the troupe, she stood head and shoulders above every one in her best work I’ve seen in years. Her poetic line, her back arched like a drawn bow and her agility provided a SFB season highlight for David Dawson’s study in black and white figures, “Anima Animus.”      My sympathy went out to the strong and taller Sofiane Sylve sharing the double lead, akin to entering a poetry contest  against Emily Dickinson. The two lead ladies quickly made me forget the sloppy lines of the corps de ballet upstage. And yes, the aficionados are already mourning the announced departure of the Russian star in summer 2018.

With “Otherness” the precocious choreographer Myles Thatcher produced a parable about understanding and  diplomacy countering prejudice. The “home team” in blue encounters the outsiders in pale pink, and immediately animosity surfaces, threatening to tear apart the Romeo-and-Juliet lovers defying their clans. Are the pinks aliens from outer space? Or immigrants? Whichever, they bedevil the lovers (Lauren Strongin, Vitor Luiz) in this very contemporary theme.

Kudos to Martin West and his pit orchestra, carrying off the rhythmic challenges of John Adams’ fast-driving “Absolute Jest” score that Thatcher incorporated.

This “Unbound” fest is overwhelming; similar future ventures should be planned, but not in 2019—the logistics for 12 world premieres annually could drive one and all to drink!

“Unbound B,” festival  program of 12 new works, April 20-May 6, by San Francisco  Ballet, with  C and D pending. Opera House, S.F. For info:(415) 865-2000, or go online.

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