Voice of Dance

First Position LXXIII
Must See Dance—Fall 08
September 2, 2008

By
ALLAN ULRICH
allan@voiceofdance.com
© VoiceofDance.com 2008

Brett Conway and Laurel Keen of Alonzo King's LINES Ballet in a new collaboration with jazz legend Pharoah Sanders. Photo Marty Sohl.

I will make it easy by restricting myself to 10 entries, and one of them won’t require leaving home. You may note that the following events cut across several styles of dance. But when compiling these recommendations, it occurred to me again that the Bay Area is almost insanely rich in the diversity of its home-grown dance and of its dancing visitors. There’s a lot of good, even great stuff out there, starting this weekend. My choices, culled from an immense pool of possibilities, are in chronological order:

1) Robert Moses’ Kin

Moses, whose 13-year-old company goes from strength to strength, has, apparently, abandoned his annual wintertime gig at the Jewish Community Center. This time around, he appears under the sponsorship of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, which means he also gets a superior theater than previously. Watching Moses evolve from a terrific solo performer to an ingenious mover of many bodies, has been one of the more heartening Bay Area success stories. An appearance a few years ago at the Jacob’s Pillow Festival secured Moses’ national reputation. This engagement features the premiere of the commissioned Toward September, concerning, we are told enigmatically, “the divine impulse of artistic creation.” Sept. 18-20, Novellus Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco. 415.978.2787, www.ybca.org (Note: the company also dances Sept. 21 at LeFevre Hall, St. Mary’s College, Moraga).

2) Shawl-Anderson Dance Center 50th Anniversary Weekend

I subscribe to the theory that knowing where we have come from tells us much about where we are now. A half-century ago, two transplanted New York dancers, Victor Anderson and Frank Shawl, opened a studio near the Oakland-Berkeley border. Through its doors have passed many luminaries of the dance world and many unknowns soon to achieve fame. The center is still a beehive of activity, but this golden anniversary weekend looks back and celebrates the artists for whom Shawl-Anderson played a crucial role in career building. A benefit concert features performances by Sonya Delwaide, Paufve Dance and Savage Jazz, plus live music. Sept. 20, at 5 p.m, St. John’s Presbyterian Church, Berkeley. A popular-priced salon includes contributions by Nina Haft, Ellen Bromberg, ahdanco, Aileen Kim and Dandelion Dance Theater. Sept. 19 at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., Shawl-Anderson Studio, 3704 Alcatraz Ave., Berkeley. 510.654.5921.

3) Mark Morris Dance Group

The West Coast premiere of Morris’ Romeo & Juliet, On Motifs of Shakespeare, which was unveiled at New York’s Bard College, July 4, marks the beginning of the farewell season for Cal Performances director Robert Cole. It was he who gave MMDG its home away from home in Berkeley, and it was he who co-commissioned several of Morris’ outstanding dances of the past two decades. In truth, the reviews for this new project were very mixed after the premiere, but no two critics have ever agreed about anything. Of note is Morris’ score, the original version of the Prokofiev’s familiar ballet music, discovered in Russia by Princeton musicologist Simon Morrison. This version of the score is said to be more lightly and inventively orchestrated than that deemed to us by the Soviet ballet establishment. Morris, reportedly, has given the Shakespeare play a quasi-mystical happy ending and his company remains, perhaps, America’s most likeable dance ensemble. Note, too, that the Berkeley Symphony will be conducted by international up-and-comer Stefan Asbury. Sept. 25-28, Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley 510.642.9988, www.calperformances.org

4) Pandit Chitresh Das

This solo evening is called Master of Tradition, and it features the artistry of Marin-based Das whose teaching and performing has made a major impact in the Bay Area over the past three decades. Das performs Kathak, one of the six schools of Indian classical dance and the most dramatically inflected of all. Das is famed for his speed in turns and the percussive power of his feet. But also watch his eyes, they are storytellers of uncommon eloquence. Likely sell-out; Das’ fans, students and mentees are legion in these parts. Sept. 27-28, Novellus Theater, YBCA, San Francisco. 415.978.2787, www.ybca.org.

5) Kirov Ballet and Orchestra of the Maryinsky Theater

Some generalizations no longer hold. There was a time when this St. Petersburg institution was considered a model of refinement, while Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet (set for a June date in Berkeley) was, somehow, deemed the more physically exuberant of the pair. But with multiple changes in artistic direction at both companies in the past decade, the cliché can be safely laid to rest. Still, the appeal of neither can be denied. The local programs, alas, don’t reflect the Kirov’s recent engagement with William Forsythe’s or George Balanchine’s dances. Instead, we will get a mixed evening that, at least includes that corps de ballet tester, “The Kingdom of the Shades”; and a reprise of the faux-classic Don Quixote. Nevertheless, the prospect of catching dancers Diana Vishneva, Ulla Lopatkina, Andrein Fadeyev or the sensation of the last New York season, the phenomenally extended Ekaterina Kondaurova, is nigh irresistible. Oct. 14-15, 17-19; Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley. 510.642-9988, www.calperformances.org

6) Lines Ballet

Year in and year out, Alonzo King produces remarkably adroit essays in skewed classicism for his gleaming, sexy company. But when he teams with saxophone master Pharoah Sanders, something special happens. That was the case a few years ago with Ocean, when the muses of both artists simply soared. There’s every possibility it will happen with their new, as yet untitled, collaboration. Oct 17-28; Novellus Theater, YBCA, Berkeley. 415.978.2787, www.linesballet.org

Holley Farmer, Brandon Collwes and company members of Merce Cunningham Dance Company perform Second Hand. Photo Anna Finke.

7) Merce Cunningham Dance Company

Cunningham is 89, one of our time’s most influential artists, and he has been visiting the University of California, Berkeley campus for almost 50 years. The four company performances at Zellerbach will include, among other treats, revivals of Suite for Five (1953-58), Second Hand (1970), and Crises (1968), plus the Bay Area premiere of XOVER (2007) with a score by Cunningham’s late partner, John Cage.

But these performances are only one component of this two-week residency. Cunningham and the composers who have made music for him will be interviewed, his films (which are much more than a bland record of his dances) will be screened at the Pacific Film Archive. And there’ll be a recreation of a 1960s “Happening.” Most intriguing of all, for this engagement, Cunningham will create a site-specific work, Craneway Event, featuring members of the company and set for unveiling at a former Ford plant at Ford Point, 1414 Harbor Way, S. Richmond. There will be two performances, 1 and 3 p.m. Nov.9, and an original sound score as well. All in all, the fall’s absolutely unmissable event. Cunningham made us look at dance in a new way and the more susceptible of us have never been the same since. Performances: Nov. 7-8, 14-15. Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley. 510.642-9988, www.calperformances.org

8) Ballet San Jose

Proceed with caution, but go, anyway. Artistic director Dennis Nahat is opening the 2008-09 season with a revival of Flemming Flindt’s reconstruction of August Bournonville’s two-act comedy, The Toreador (1840). The work by the great Danish classicist has not survived (it was last performed in 1929), and, when Nahat last revived this version in 1990, there were plenty of questions about authenticity. Although Flindt both danced and served as balletmaster at the Royal Danish Ballet and is familiar with the Bournonville style, his reconstruction is not considered part of the central Bournonville canon.

For this revival, Flindt (and former wife Vivi Flindt) will have the assistance of Ballet SJ School director Lise la Cour, like him, a former dancer at the Royal Danish Ballet. At the very least, we will get more than an inkling of the magnificently humane approach to movement that is Bournonville’s legacy to classical dance, including his passion for Mediterranean cultures (spend a winter in Denmark, and you’ll understand). The physical production, created at the Royal Danish Ballet, is an eye-catcher; live music from Symphony Silicon Valley. Nov. 20-23; Center for the Arts, San Jose. 408.288.2820, www.balletsanjose.org

9) SF Hip Hop Dance Fest

It took this festival, now about to celebrate its 10th anniversary, to reveal to this observer how much variety is possible within the limits of this strictly urban dance form. Micaya, the artistic director, and, as we saw during the recently concluded WestWave, an inventive choreographer, combs the area, the country and the globe for hip hop artists and companies, and blends them into a tasty mix. Plenty of surprises, lotsa buzz, much good cheer. Nov. 21-23, Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco. 415.392.4400, www.sfhiphopdancefest.com

10) San Francisco Ballet Nutcracker

Yes, Helgi Tomasson’s opulent staging of the seasonal classic will be back on the stage of the War Memorial Opera House on Dec. 11. But the production will also be on television, as recorded last December. The leads in this performance are Maria Kochetkova and Davit Karapetyan in the grand pas de deux, and Yuan Yuan Tan and Pierre-François Vilanoba in the snow scene. Champion skater Kristy Yamaguchi introduces this Great Performances presentation. Dec. 17, PBS (check your local station for telecast day and time).

Happy dance going!