San Francisco Ballet in Christopher Wheeldon's Within the Golden Hour. Photo by Erik Tomasson.
What may be the most significant week in the San Francisco Ballet’s 75-year history began Tuesday evening (April 22) at the War Memorial Opera House with the first installment of the company’s New Works Festival. Ten premieres, many by international-level choreographers, will fill out the schedule for the next couple of weeks; eight of those dance makers have contributed substantially to shaping the San Francisco Ballet’s profile under Helgi Tomasson’s 23-year stewardship. Before the initial trio of dances, a current of anticipation ran through the hall.
Yet, it lit up all the chandeliers precisely once, when the curtain fell on Christopher Wheeldon’s dazzling Within the Golden Hour, an exquisitely deft abstraction for three principal couples and a mixed, eight member corps. If this New Works Festival is, in some way, an inquiry into where classical dance will go in the 21st century, the answer may have been here: Ballet will evolve in small increments, as the brightest of our choreographers impart their own distinctive sensibilities to a venerable, much abused and ultimately triumphant language.
Wheeldon makes news here by lavishing his considerable powers of invention on a standard format, skewed in an unpredictable manner. Framed by a series of rising and descending mottled bars, garbed in Martin Pakledinaz’s glittering costumes and glowing in James F. Ingalls’ metamorphosing lighting scheme, the 12 dancers play out a series of variations on romance. This time, the young English choreographer has chosen string music by the unfamiliar Italian composer Ezio Bosso (noted for his film scores), bolstered by an Andante from a Vivaldi Violin Concerto.
It’s basically mood music of a somewhat rueful nature and the mood Wheeldon evokes is passion subject dramatically to the laws of gravity. Rarely in this choreographer’s work has he used the force of the earth in such a striking manner. The floor here becomes a refuge, a transition, a helpmate to amorous conquest. Bodies pivot, bend, slip into luxuriant plies with the irresistibility of warm honey. The dancers join hands, stretch arms and envelop the performance space. It’s a combination of sophistication and naiveté that only a masterful choreographer can bring off.
However, to go to the heart of Within the Golden Hour, you go to the three interspersed duets featuring six of SFB’s most striking principals. Katita Waldo and Damian Smith’s encounter abounds in slippery backs and evolves into a heart-stopping waltz, taken up by the corps. In some ways, the pairing of Sarah Van Patten and Pierre-François Vilanoba suggests an homage to Balanchine’s Agon in its floor-oriented gambits, but the ardent physicality is Wheeldon’s own touch. The Balanchine of "Diamonds" is suggested in the pas de deux for Maria Kochetkova and Joan Boada which proceeds in a diagonal trajectory, as he approaches her on a series of bended knees in a literal courtship ritual.
Sarah Van Patten and Pierre-François Vilanoba in Christopher Wheeldon's Within The Golden Hour. Photo by Erik Tomasson.
Wheeldon leavens these intense episodes with more upbeat corps contributions. Noted and appreciated was a flighty mirror-unison duo for Rory Hohenstein and Jaime Garcia Castilla. What perhaps appeals most about Within the Golden Hour is a sensation of spontaneity. Some of Wheeldon’s dances have looked a bit over cogitated, solutions to problems, but the lyrical outpouring of this new ballet disarms criticism. I suspect it will remain in the active repertoire (pray with this cast) for years to come. David Briskin conducted the premiere performance; violinist Roy Malan and violist Paul Ehrlich were prominently featured.
Program A begins on a more mundane note. In Fusion, SFB choreographer in residence Yuri Possokhov treads a path similar to the one he pursued in Sagalobeli, made for the State Ballet of Georgia, which played Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall a few months ago. Here, the choreographer melds whirling Dervishes with standard ballet moves. The music, two fanciful works by Graham Fitkin and Osvaldo Golijov’s arrangement of pieces by Rahul Dev Burman (played by the Kronos Quartet), offer a key.
At the beginning, four corps men, dressed in traditional white headgear, skirts and pants sit on the floor. Four couples in blue (they include Smith, Castilla, Boada, Gennadi Nedvigin, Lorena Feijoo, Kristin Long, Yuan Yuan Tan and Vanessa Zahorian) interject in a flurry of extended limbs and dramatic pointe work. As the piece wends its way to the conclusion, the four men will replace the corps on the floor. In Sandra Woodall’s costumes and Benjamin Pierce’s projections, Fusion looks alluring, but Possokhov’s attempt to find similarities between classical and traditional styles of movement seems, as did Sagalobeli, a mite overextended. You wait, too, for the Dervishes to really whirl. The dancing is predictably satisfying, but the problem, here, is the schematic nature of the enterprise: the styles may borrow from each other, but they don’t really fuse. Cheers to music director Martin West, who brought on all the participating musicians for a bow.
Yuan Yuan Tan and Damian Smith in Yuri Possokhov's Fusion. Photo by Erik Tomasson.
Paul Taylor was understandably cheered to the rafters when the great modernist materialized on stage after the unveiling of his Changes, which ends the program on a perplexing note. This is the latest in the choreographer’s replications of popular music, but it reverberates less potently than its predecessors. Here, Taylor evokes the world of 1960s rock and roll through recordings of six songs by the Mamas and the Papas and Lennon-McCartney. But the tone is unsure: Is this a wallow in nostalgia, or is the intention satiric? Santo Loquasto’s costumes, bell bottoms, love beads and headbands for days, suggest the latter. Yet, Taylor’s recreation of the pop dance styles of the era keeps us mystified.
What never comes across is the scent of the revolution that the choreographer cites in his superscription. Still, one episode, an almost literal setting of John Phillips’ "Dancing Bear" (with Benjamin Stewart in Dr. Dentons and Aaron Orza as the ursine mentor), is charming and quirky beyond words. Patrick Corbin set Changes on 11 members of the SFB corps, and they seemed to relish their assignments in material which may have seemed as ancient to them as the gavotte. Courtney Elizabeth flailed amusingly in “California Earthquake,” while Pauli Magierek, of whom we will see much in the coming days, led "I Call Your Name" with verve. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see what Taylor’s own company makes of Changes, when it incorporates the work into its repertory later this season.
No, Within the Golden Hour is the must-see entry on this program. It will next be given Friday at 8 p.m.
For SFB New Works Festival tickets, call (415) 865-2000 or go to www.sfballet.org
