Saturday Matinee

Yuan Yuan Tan and Damian Smith in Balanchine's Stravinsky Violin Concerto. © Erik Tomasson

Program 6 at the San Francisco Ballet is a program very much focused on the music. Three very different pieces graced the stage in varying responses to their accompanying music. The most harmonious construction was Christopher Wheeldon’s quirky yet stunning Within the Golden Hour that was for many, the favorite of the night. Set to the shimmering music of Ezio Bosso’s seven pieces for strings, the piece breathes. Wheeldon utilizes innovative partnering and movements that entwine unobtrusively to the swells in the music. Bathed in a warm glow, this piece has the feeling of dusk – convivial with a touch of melancholy. Ensemble work flanks a series of smaller groupwork. A brief competitive duel with Martyn Garside and Garen Scribner set to rivaling strings is thrilling in its flash of fierce virtuosity and elegant lines. The series of pas de deux is also a wonder, where Wheeldon stretches time with choreography that’s spellbinding in suspense and stark beauty. In the duet with Pierre-Francois Vilanoba and Sarah Van Patten, Van Patten unfolds as a slowly opening flower, stretching languidly to the music. Maria Kochetkova and Joan Boada weaves a spell, carving unconventional and gentle shapes with their bodies and Kochetkova’s feathery arms, unfortunately marred by a wayward violin solo painfully still searching for its pitch. Choreographed only last year on the San Francisco Ballet, the dancers have stepped up to really claim it as its own, and this piece has only improved with time.  

Sarah Van Patten and Pierre-Francois Vilanoba in Wheeldon's Within the Golden Hour. © Erik Tomasson

Even if you couldn’t connect to the sharp-cornered “Stravinsky Violin Concerto” choreographed by Balanchine, there’s no denying that the choreography intimately followed the music, Stravinsky’s violin concerto in D major. If this piece was a painting, it would be a mix of a cubist Picasso, deceptively simple stick figures, and the irony and the multilayered construction of a Jasper Johns painting. The dance is filled with geometric shapes and angles, mirroring the atonal accompanying music occasionally uneasy on the ears. Dancers’ steps mix classical ballet and casual every day movement in a mix of the mundane and the sublime. Sky high split penchee arabesques (as shown above with Yuan Yuan Tan) are juxtaposed with turned-in feet and flexed wrists. A little bit of mime is thrown in, where Sofiane Sylve and Pierre-Francois Vilanoba is doing the classic “mime in a box”. Sylve twists in a series of perplexing backbends that’s intriguing in where it will go next.  Dark humor pervades the choreography in the jaunty first movement, where Balanchine experiments with one-versus-four in a series of formations. The two central pas de deux is tense, with Sofiane Sylve and Pierre-Francois Vilanoba dancing as if oil and water were being forced to mix. Yuan Yuan Tan and Damian Smith suspended this same unresolveable tension, with a touch of drama set to the yearning phrases of the violin. Tan’s long limbs unfolded with insectlike precision. The men, Vilanoba and Smith, were pillars of strength and equally dramatic partners to their flashy female counterparts, Sylve and Tan, who were as alluring and terrifying as Greek goddesses. The ensemble joined in at the ending “Capriccio” in a multilayered complex and cheerful finale. Roy Malan was the fearless violin soloist.

San Francisco Ballet in Balanchine's Stravinsky Violin Concerto. © Erik Tomasson

Sofiane Sylve and Pierre-Francois Vilanoba in Balanchine's Stravinsky Violin Concerto. © Erik Tomasson

Robbins’ West Side Story Suite continues to insist upon its dancers to sing with Broadway chops, and the effect unfortunately takes away from the choreography that crackles with intensity. Kudos for the dancers who sing; their valliant effort is much appreciated, yet it’s hard to avoid thinking if this is too big of a task for people who don’t specialize in a highly skilled style of singing. The worst part is that after the initial novelty wears off, the singing takes away from the dancing. Put another way, they fared better than if opera singers were asked to dance Swan Lake in pointe shoes. In addition, sound projection was still a problem. My friend who’d never seen the movie and didn’t know the story, had no idea what was going on because the lyrics were impossible to discern if you hadn’t had them memorized already. It’s also never a good start when the audience starts to laugh at its opening. Robbins, I’m learning more and more, means for his stillness and silences to mean as much as actual movement. When the boys are lounging in their territory at the prologue, they have to be tensely poised as a predator ready to strike (case in point: the opening to the movie West Side Story, which I found terrifying in its silence). This intensity has to be sustained in order for the story to be believable, yet it wavered throughout the performance. Despite this, the core of the dancing was still solid. The gang members in both the Jets and the Sharks were passionately committed in their fighting and struggle. Moments of white hot passion flared, especially in the rumble with Ruben Martin as Bernardo. Rory Hohenstein’s presence was a welcome sight after his too-long absence from the War Memorial Opera House stage, a superstar standout in both his solos and in the group dancing, dancing with an intense sharpness and crisp virtuosity. Shannon Roberts again brought down the house as the sexy Anita, with a powerful singing voice and sass to spare. 

A shoutout to the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra with this very difficult musical program, from the Stravinsky Violin Concerto to the notoriously difficult West Side Story Suite. It was conducted by David Briskin.

San Francisco Ballet in Robbin's West Side Story Suite. © Erik Tomasson

More information on SF Ballet’s Program 6, here.