A fair test of a company’s salience is how well it dances
Harald Lander’s seminal work, “Etudes.” Some of the best companies don’t even
make the attempt. San Francisco Ballet proved its mettle not only by mastering
the challenge, but furnishing the academic tour de force, staged by Royal
Danish Ballet’s entrusted Johnny Eliasen, with a commodious home away from
home. The company’s large size made it possible for Eliasen to maximize the
spectacle impact of Lander’s syncopated progressive barre exercises. It begins
with dancers firing small muscles; then showing sequences of greater complexity.
Before you know it, a studio class turns into an eponymous work of art.
Four barres, with three dancers each, are positioned on diagonals. Only lower
bodies are lit; faces are in shadow (Lighting: Lander and Craig J. Miller). We
focus on a flipbook of changing configurations among triads of dancers. They
have us from the first plié to the final révérence. Steps move from á terre
level to en l’air. The locus grows until grand batîments (high kicks) reign
supreme over each dancer’s “box” of space and placement, silhouetted against a
blue backdrop.
An ensemble in white, derivative of
“Suite en Blanc,” arranges itself in a tableau exuding Lifar-like
correctness. At its center is Sasha De Sola, feet cast as if machined in a die
shop. She angles through épaulement, flies into turns, then leaves the stage to
Carlo Di Lanno, whose brisé is downright (and upright) stylish. Angelo Greco weighs
in with a forceful stride and commanding presence. Then Joseph Walsh revels in
the thrill of blinding footwork. Corps de ballet members variously designated
“Ladies in White,” “Ladies in Black,” and “Gentlemen,” enter and exit in
cannons, and a trio of “Sylphides” mitre the edges, to frame a worthy work.
“Snowblind” adapted by choreographer Cathy Marston from
Edith Wharton’s classic, “Ethan Frome,” won audience acclaim last season. Ulrik
Birkkjaer, as Ethan Frome, a farmer; Jennifer Stahl, as Zeena Frome, his sickly
wife; and Mathilde Froustey, as Mattie Silver, their home help; pull us into
the vortex of an ill-fated triangle.
Patrick Kinmonth’s costumes and set, and James F. Ingalls’ (at times too dark)
lighting, create the icy/hot climate. The grim double yoke of a pauperized
couple, further hobbled by the wife’s illness and husband’s frustrations,
wouldn’t seem the obvious choice for a dance interpretation, but Marston drills
deep. Her work spins a web of bonds seemingly
more enduring than the ice wall scrim that rises and falls so softly and
silently to reveal its complexities. Couples in brown white-edged costumes register
the gloom and brume of the ice floes encapsulating the threesome. Impervious
and nature-blind, they frolic in the snow, while the trio agonizes through its
misalliance. Whether miming a short sewing/spinning sequence, or creeping
around the edges of her husband’s dalliance, Stahl shows us the inner Zeena, and
how she strategizes her rage. The two-level staging looks to have been reworked
for this run; my preference is for last season’s, where the final moments come
elevated, rather than at proscenium level.
For those living in San Francisco, the concept of a fifth
season is not an alien one; by driving across town or climbing a steep hill,
you can switch from fall to spring. Opening night of Helgi Tomasson’s “Fifth
Season” coincides with a two-week deluge, welcomed on the heels of an
apocalyptic fire to the north in late summer and early fall. Never has the
idiosyncratic air du temps here more mimicked a fifth season.
Floating grey banners rise and fall over a grey stagescape and unremittingly grey
costumes (Sandra Woodall.) Dores André
and Vitor Luiz usher in corps dancer gradient greys. Both music (Karl Jenkins)
and lighting (Michael Mazzola) brighten suddenly, the prelude to a waltz
movement interpreted by Sofiane Sylve and Tiit Helimets, and Yuan Yuan Tan and
Luke Ingham. Tours and balances-to-lifts offer brief flights of enchantment,
and then André and Luiz return for a movement called “Romance,” (timeline 1970s?)
followed by a Tango segment, so-named more for its music than entrainments.
The choreography experiments with doll-like semi—sous-sous steps and en l’air
rond, as the strings come up, and where slow descents and ascents keep us
interested. The most satisfying moments arrive when Helimets and Tan partner
tenderly, with a knowingness of each other’s bodies testifying to season upon season
of seasoning. Tan’s preternaturally pliant arms pose themselves as the feathery
strings accompanying her. The “Bits” movement that follows feels off-topic
after an adagio of such persuasive reckoning.
Toba Singer
