World Arts West presents: 27th Annual San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, Weekend 1
June 13, 2003
By
ALLAN ULRICH
allan@voiceofdance.com
Hearan Chung. Photo by Bonnie Kamin.
The first weekend of the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival ran the gamut - from Korean reincarnation dance to gentle hulas from the 19th century to thrilling ensembles from the African Diaspora. All in all, a superior show Saturday afternoon (June 11) at the Palace of Fine Arts Theater. Six companies and three soloists sampled their cultural heritages and stirred an uncommonly youthful and talky audience, still in need of lessons in concert etiquette from its parents.
Again this year, each of the three weekends offers fare that hews to a theme. Last weekend, it was Beginnings, a rubric that admits a wide variety of ethnic presentations. There was much enjoyment here, though one must admit that producer World Arts West is falling into its lamentable old ways. The program was too long, the starting time was later than advertised and the intermission ran forever. Also, what was once presented plain is now in danger of being overproduced. The more sophisticated lighting and use of traveling curtains, I fear, is yielding to slickness. Last year, every act was preceded by words from an offstage narrator who told us what we were going to see and what it meant to that particular culture. This year, a badly miked onstage dancer (who will be different every weekend) moves and delivers a series of uninformative platitudes. Then, too, they're bringing on a company before the previous troupe has finished its number. Where are they getting this show biz stuff from? It's annoying, especially when a query to the World Arts West executive director about how many companies were making their festival debuts this year elicited a blank look. Previous directors had that answer at their fingertips. Everybody seems too busy "producing" to have statistics at hand.
Still, as usual this year, the program book is a valuable compendium of facts about these artists and the traditions from which they evolve. This year's other innovation - bringing out the performers (all chosen from open auditions last winter) to the PFA lobby after the show, so we can examine their costumes up close - is a dandy idea. Some of those outfits are as tremendous up close as they are when viewed from hundreds of feet away.
To open Saturday, Nitya Venkateswaran, a specialist in the South Indian classical dance form, Bharatanatyam, offered Shiva Shakti, a purification solo dedicated to Shiva's consort. The erect postures, carefully placed fingers and meticulously bent legs bespoke mastery of craft, though what I believe was recorded music was a let down. But then came the Fook Sing Lion Dance Troupe directed by Sifu Kok Min Chan in The Creation of Earth from Five Elements. Essentially a lion dance, it introduced five splendid beasts sporting masks to die for. The Chinese orchestra, with acrid percussive sounds, accompanied fiercely.
Charya Burt, Classical Cambodian Dance. Photo by Bonnie Kamin.
To follow, one of the Bay Area's hidden treasures, Charya Burt delivered the classical Cambodian dance, Roubam Chhouy Chhat, originally choreographed with assistance from Queen Kossamek Nearyath. The sparkling brocade of the dancer's costume and the delicacy of every gesture suggested we were glimpsing one small, precious corner of a dance tradition that was almost exterminated in our lifetimes. Burt runs the Cambodian Community Center in Santa Rosa.
Bolivia Corazon de America began its sequence with a wondrous bit of trompe l'oeil. We appeared to be looking at four huge gray flowers arrayed across the stage. What we were really seeing were the elaborate headdresses of four of the dancers in artistic director Susana SalinasSuri Sikuri, and that towering headgear is fabricated from ostrich feathers. The live music, heavy on pan pipes, proved captivating; the choreography stressed symmetry.
The Grupo Folcl'rico Alma Ribatejana specializes in rural Portuguese dance. A circle number, in which the couples swivel in place, suggested that this was an enthusiastic, but definitely amateur collection of folk dancers. And whatever the Otufelenite Tongan Dance Ensemble was doing, it didn't particularly speak to these Western eyes. However, the Korean soloist Hearan Chung, in a creation dance, Bi Chun Mu, furnished the great performance of the afternoon. Trailing long white sleeves, bending, twisting and rising like the reincarnation of an avian spirit, Chung drew us into her world like no other performer in the concert.
If the purpose the Ethnic Dance Festival is to show us something we have never seen before, then Ensambles Ballet Folklorico de San Francisco fulfilled the mandate. Semana Santa en Chihuahua offered a chaste ritual for Holy Week from the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico. The dancers, all in white, recreating a ceremony by candlelight in front of a series of huge crucifixes, was worlds removed from the mariachi consorts of tourist brochures. Founded in 1992 and directed by Zenon Barron, this is a company worth watching.
Dimensions Dance Theater. Photo by Bonnie Kamin.
Also amazing was the exhibition of hula by Halau 'O Keikiali'I, far from the shopping mall kitsch you will find in Waikiki. A number, in which the performers defined a rhythm with sticks, was especially impressive. You can always depend on Deborah Vaughan's Dimensions Dance Theater of Oakland to produce a beautifully rehearsed show. This time, it was Rhythm Harvest with guest artist John Santos. His band, needless to say, rocked.
The S.F. Ethnic Dance Festival continues at the Palace of Fine Arts Theater June 18-19 and June 25-26. For tickets, call (415) 392-4400.
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