Best of 2008 January 8, 2009
And… I’m back! Apologies for the long absence, but I hope everyone had a great holiday like I did. I did a bit of shuttling back and forth from home (HOME home) and work, but it was all worth it and I managed to keep things up at work at the same time. Can everyone believe it’s already 2009?? It’s hard not to look ahead to the next year without being optimistic. But last year was a good one. On a personal and professional (i.e. non-blogging) level, 2008 was filled with a lot of frustration and struggle, but I ended up a much happier and stronger person. Last year was truly a year I can say that I really grew. That much strife is never fun, but if this year brings the same, I hope I’m ready for it! And what a great year this was for theater! Below are things that impressed me deeply. Let’s get on with it.
Biggest event of the year: San Francisco Ballet’s New Works Festival. Hands down, this event was probably the most widely written about event of the year. I attended opening night which was a blast being surrounded by critics I’ve read so much about. As advertised, it was an over-the-top, stupendous event that sent reverberations throughout the dance world, all of the world, with its 10 world premieres in three days by the greatest choreographers alive today. In another sense however, it was difficult to ignore a disappointment that no matter what, this festival could not live up to its hype. Crammed into three days, the pieces looked much more alive and urgently present when I saw the company later in the year, on tour. Despite the harriedness and the hype, the festival was simply awesome.
Best performance of the year: Yuan Yuan Tan and Tiit Helimet’s Giselle, especially the second act. Heartbreaking, heavenly, transporting, it was a performance that transcended this world. Tan and Helimets seemed to melt into each other, and it’s a performance I’ll never forget.
Yuan Yuan Tan and Tiit Helimets in Tomasson’s Giselle. © Erik Tomasson
Honorable mentions:
- Jared Angle and Yvonne Borree in Balanchine’s Duo Concertant
- the snap and crackle of San Francisco Symphony performing Bernstein’s West Side Story Suite
- the generous spirit of Alvin Ailey’s Revelations
- Possohkov’s Sagalobeli as the dancers of the State Ballet of Georgia danced with deep heart and loyalty
- Peter Wyrick’s solo in Lindberg’s Seht die Sonne in a slightly technically unwieldy yet resonating outpour of song
- the intellectual yet hilarious and musically thoughtful Julia Adam’s A rose by any other name.
Breakout stars of the year: two performers that unexpectedly floored me this year (which, as I see more and more great performers, is getting harder to do but these performers are phenomenal) – a tie between pianist Orion Weiss‘ vibrant rendition of Beethoven’s Fourth Concerto with the Marin Symphony, and Isaac Hernandez’s explosive yet brief solo as the Russian in San Francisco Ballet’s Nutcracker who will be one to watch for the upcoming year.
Orion Weiss
Isaac Hernandez
A common theme for this year: the merging of science and art. From opera (John Adams’ Dr. Atomic), to ballet (Wayne McGregor’s Eden/Eden about cloning), and classical music (Turnage’s Three Asteroids) and even a choreographed piece of my own. None of these pieces were even created this year, but I’m slowly starting to see science’s influence emerge repeatedly in the arts.
Best non-ballet, non-classical musical event: Berkeley Rep’s Figaro. Yes, I realize my biases and preferences for ballet and classical music are clear, but there were other events that I thoroughly enjoyed as well, such as the genre-defying play at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, a company that continues to take risks and always presents something surprising, innovative, and relevant.
A special shoutout to: A great year for TV, especially PBS’ Great Performances. From the startingly poignant performance of Raul Esparza in the revival of Sondheim’s Company, to the magical broadcast of SF Ballet’s Nutcracker, to SF Symphony’s opening performance of Carnegie Hall’s season, I’m duly impressed with the arts that are made accessible to audiences all over the US.
Most popular blog entry: Sascha Radetsky’s Last Performance with ABT by FAR - either he’s the most googled ballet dancer or he’s googling himself a million times, with my review of San Francisco Ballet’s Nutcracker the next popular blog entry with so many people googling it during Nutcracker season that it broke the record on my blog for the most number of hits in one day.
Most anticipated events for 2009:
- Martha Argerich performs Ravel’s piano concerto with MTT and the San Francisco Symphony
- the entire 2009 season for San Francisco Ballet which is, believe it or not, better than last year’s (especially the full length Balanchine’s Jewels, Swan Lake, and an evening of Mark Morris) and let’s not forget to savor the final year for Tina LeBlanc with the SF Ballet
- Julia Adam’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Diablo Ballet.
Martha Argerich
My advice for 2009:
- Support theater!! Buy tickets, drag friends with you, comment and discuss what you see either on this blog or other blogs, and don’t forget about smaller, local companies that are struggling in this dismal, arts-unfriendly economy
- Do not buy pre-sale tickets for Wicked but wait it out until the hype dies down (and it will!).
What were your favorite performances for 2008? Anyone think I left something out?
Here’s to a year of innovative theater, unspeakly beautiful dance, and soul-touching music!
It’s so nice to have a West Coast-oriented best-of list. Thanks, Jolene (and thanks for the shoutout).
I’m really interested in following the trend of science and dance research, too. I would love to hear more about some of the work you’re most interested in – what universities or other centers are the most progressive, what sort of progress is being made, etc.
c
That’s interesting that you bring up universities – I didn’t really see university dance as a hotbed but with Pilobilus (loosely science in art) starting at a university, and even at my university, I do believe you’re onto something. When I was searching for a dance studio to film my Dance Your Phd thing, I accidentally stumbled onto a possible collaboration with the dance department here (a professor who’s a former Paul Taylor dancer) here who expressed interest in collaborating with the neuroscience department to choreograph neuroscience and neural diseases. He mentioned a choreographer in Santa Cruz (I think) who’s choreographed autism and the disease process. (Which reminds me, I should email him back
As for hotbeds, I think you bring up a good point that universities are hotbeds but I wouldn’t know. Science is just something I see more and more in the circles of art that I traipse in.
I have to wonder though, why now? Science and art. Is there increasingly more interest in science that’s not trickling into the arts but all other areas of our consciousness? Is it scientists/doctors like seeping into the public media like Dr. Oz who explains scientific processes approachably that gets people thirsty to know more about it? Is it a science-friendly President elect (although science appeared in art before Obama)? I think progress is being made in slowly beginning to open up lines of communication, reaching across two very esoteric and usually closed-off disciplines and starting to open up to the idea that both subjects can learn a lot from each other.
That being said, there’s still such a long way to go. Even from speaking to the dance prof, I was surprised at what a complete loss he was feeling in how to even approach the neuroscience department in opening up a collaboration. McGregor’s Eden/Eden is a cool way of raising questions associated with cloning, and yet the “artistic” view of science can still be pretty laughable to the science community. For instance, Eden/Eden tried to explain the process of “electroporation” (introducing DNA into a cell) by describing it overly dramatically as a “jolt of electricity” and maybe even an accompanying “tzzt” electricity sound. I am fascinated though in McGregor as a choreographer in his subject matter and choreography itself as I’m sure you’re already familiar with, and the other things he’s doing that’s science-inspired. In short, he’s the closest to a hotbed I can come up with.
http://greatdance.com/thekineticinterface/2008/05/wayne-mcgregors-entity/
I have more to say (believe it or not) but my boss keeps popping in and out. I’ll probably add more to my comment later.
Ha – that’s amusing to think about the science world chuckling over choreographers’ ideas about science. I can only imagine…
Yes, McGregor is interesting – he is certainly the highest profile dance person I can think of. But I hear about science and dance collaborations all the time, happening on a much quieter scale. Actually, I think that when it comes to universities, the sciences are much more embracing of dance than the liberal arts, which tend to be absurdly dismissive about dance as an intellectual pursuit. Certainly, I never think about universities as dance hotbeds in terms of pushing the art form forward – though that’s changing, I hope, with people like Tere O’Connor being invited in as serious scholars.
I do think certainly that the wider culture is very interested in science right now. I certainly am. It seems we are at a point when science fiction has become actual science, in terms of what is now possible that would have been unthinkable just a short time ago. It’s exciting and scary, and that adds up to a certain glamour, no?