United They Dance
An International Salute to the San Francisco Ballet
Dances by Mrozewski, Balanchine, Maillot War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, CA
April 2, 2008
Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo in Maillot's Altro Canto. Photo by Erik Tomasson.
Flags of other nations flapped in the lobby of the War Memorial House Tuesday evening (April 1). Someone at the San Francisco Ballet (let’s assume it was artistic director Helgi Tomasson) came up with a genius idea of how to add luster to this 75th anniversary season and to keep subscribers purring until the launch of the New Works Festival at the end of this month. To maintain the continuity of the season and allow the SFB time to complete the final, intense rehearsal schedule, three companies have been invited to perform this week in place of the home team. Yes, it’s an encore in miniature of the historic 1995 United We Dance Festival and whatever else the program proved, it told us that there’s a lot out there that San Franciscans never see at home and are the worse for it.
One of this week’s visitors, Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, is dancing here for the first time. The others, the National Ballet of Canada and New York City Ballet, appear so infrequently in the Bay Area that their passports long ago expired (that noted with regret). There are connections to San Francisco in all this. Canadian Matjash Mrozewski created Concordia for SFB last year and was probably invited for that job on the basis of a piece like A Delicate Battle, which opens this week’s bill in a performance by the Toronto-based company. SFB’s nexus to the Balanchine tradition was sufficient pretext for a showing of Duo Concertant, missing from SFB’s repertoire since for many years and given here by Yvonne Borree and Jared Angle from NYCB.
However, choreographer Jean-Christophe Maillot, who has directed Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo since 1993, is totally unknown in the Bay Area. That may change soon, if Tuesday’s hearty reception (it sounded like the entire Monégasque population out there) is indicative. The work, Altro Canto (Another Song), sounds grim: a 10-part, 40-minute work for 19 dancers, set to ravishing pre-baroque vocal and instrumental scores by Claudio Monteverdi, Biagio Marini and Giovanni Kapersberger, most of it unfamiliar even to early music buffs.
The piece’s ritual atmosphere, like incense filling the nostrils, can be daunting. The first time I saw the piece in Monaco shortly after the premiere in 2006, it left little impression; a severe case of jet lag didn’t help. Tuesday, Altro Canto held the attention, although the extreme length for such an episodic ballet still troubles. Maillot derives theatrical tension from the contrast between the spiritual nature and filigree texture of most of the music and the muscular, visceral quality of the choreography. One recalls that Martha Graham once described dancers as acrobats of God, and that’s the way Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo performed Tuesday. This is an alert versatile company. In his pre-SFB days, Pascal Molat was a member.
Ramon Gomes Reis and Bernice Coppieters in Jean-Christophe Maillot's Altro Canto. Photo by Erik Tomasson.
Altro Canto compels attention. In a décor limited to candles descending, rising and arranging themselves in different configurations, the dancers, clad in Karl Lagerfeld’s chic, shiny white costumes (which incline to skirts for the men) enact a stylized passion play. There are religious overtones as a woman is hoisted by the crowd and paraded through the stage space like an icon. But much of the rest of the piece inclines to earthy, sometimes unisex encounters. Maillot highlights gestural details throughout: a recurring image is of the arms on a supine dancer squiggling like overcooked spaghetti. The look of Altro Canto often resembles one of those kids’ books that show you the alphabet represented by curving bodies. Dancers are upturned and shaken a bit. Facsimiles of the Pietà emerge and recede into the murk. Performers swing from each other’s necks. Ensemble moments yield to more intimate passages and recur in fresh configurations.
Maillot gives us an arresting set piece, positioned three-quarters of the way through the piece. An extraordinary duet features Bernice Coppieters and Ramon Gomes Reis during which the pair barely touches. Instead, through a series of convoluted gestures, they seem to draw power and sustenance from each other’s soul. Talk about good and bad vibrations. The encounter is the thoughtful still point in a work that suggests the extent to which faith is acquired only after a struggle. Altro Canto is presented here in its American premiere. I suspect this country has not seen the last of this eccentric, powerful essay. The music, performed by Ensemble Akademia, conducted by Francois Lasserre, was heard via recording.
National Ballet of Canada has danced A Delicate Battle in the U.S. on earlier occasions, and, it seems another chapter in Mrozewski’s explorations of dualities in tone, style and music. Forces struggled for supremacy in Concordia, but in that work, the choreographer seemed to find a middle path, a compromise in his approach to movement. A Delicate Battle was premiered eight years ago, which is an eon in the life of a young choreographer and its opposites and antagonisms look schematic, even crude by comparison. Today, constant snow falling on stage, women in evening gowns and men in business suits can’t help but look like leftover tropes from an older generation of Eurodance (yes, think Pina Bausch).
Sonia Rodriguez and Christopher Body of The National Ballet of Canada in Matjash Mrozewski's A Delicate Battle. Photo by Erik Tomasson.
First, Mrozewski shows us the classicists, seven dancers (led by Jenna Savella and Keiichi Hirano), in Christopher Read’s tight whities animating the contrapuntal structure of the "Ricercar à 6" from Bach’s Musical Offering. It’s all airy, conscientious and a bit stiffly academic in its vocabulary. Unisons suggest a community at peace with itself. On the periphery hovers the gowned Alejandra Perez-Gomez, arms raised in a presentiment of doom. Suited men hurry across the stage. A silvery canopy sinks to the stage. Snow descends as three couples (Perez-Gomez/Etienne Lavigne, Heather Ogden/Patrick Lavoie, Sonia Rodriguez/Christopher Body) plunge into a series of weighted, increasingly violent duets. The music, adroitly conducted by David Briskin, segues from Bach to Gavin Bryars’ enticing After the Requiem with its brooding string and guitar textures.
The duets, with dancers dragged across the floor, suggest that ugliness is more real than beauty, but I’m not sure that was Mrozewski’s intention. One is left admiring the fluidity of design and the commitment of these sleek dancers and that may be enough. The best of this choreographer’s work surely lies ahead.
Tuesday’s performance of Duo Concertant (made for the 1972 Stravinsky Festival) was a testament to the speedy attacks that can still make New York City Ballet’s Balanchine such a bracing experience. Angle flew through the shifting balances and daring extensions with flair and a sense of fantasy. At this point in her career, Yvonne Borree, while practiced, can’t quite keep up and an element of coyness entered the performance. Here, Balanchine is doing nothing less than probing the source of choreographic inspiration, as the dancers stand behind the on-stage piano and allow the music to seep through their pores. Violinist Arturo Delmoni and pianist Cameron Grant were the splendid on-stage musicians. It was easy to find this performance a bit wanting in passion, at least in comparison with the remarkable rendering by Nino Gogua and Lasha Khozashvili of the State Ballet of Georgia in Berkeley last February.
Note that NYCB’s Sterling Hyltin and Robert Fairchild will dance in alternate performances of Duo Concertant. Check the SFB website for details.
An International Salute to San Francisco Ballet continues through Sunday at 2 p.m at the War Memorial Opera House.
For San Francisco Ballet tickets, visit www.sfballet.org or call (415) 865-2000.
