ArtsSF

Ballet and philosophy rarely converge. But there we were, with not one but two such examples of theorizing and thought-provoking choreography, venturing to convey concepts through movement. Good luck! Trey McIntyre’s world premiere “Big Hunger” explains it all (at least in the printed notes): The big hunger in humanity is the yearning for meaning, an existential clue to purpose. The scenic design’s massive structure (Thomas Mika) was a further clue: A prominently illuminated EXIT door on stage. This could symbolize…

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WALNUT CREEK, CA—Is it high art, or is it sheer entertainment? The indestructible Smuin Contemporary Ballet has opened up its colorful annual Christmas Ballet, a cornucopia of the new and old offering variety show, modern ballet, night-club pizzazz, step dance, sacred dance, tap, and everything from snowfall to an Elvis impersonator. It’s all carried off with high energy and humor, with sight gags like the spotlight falling on an audience member who pops up a colorful umbrella during a brief…

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BERKELEY—The Russians serving up a palatial seven-course ballet feast in “La Bayadère:” Take a Barnum & Bailey spectacular, with oompah circus music to match, and a faux-India of snake charmers and rajahs like Hollywood’s, as ground out in 1920s silent flicks. Add arguably the finest dancers in the world, with a depth of ensemble to rival the Vienna Philharmonic or the New England Patriots. There you have the invincible Mariinsky Ballet out of St. Petersburg, Russia, playing here this week….

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Three peas in a pod? Hardly. Three new dances differ. But count on Imagery ballet to come up with an adroit unifying element for three choreographers doing world premieres. This time, it was: Use projections, any way you want them (plus suggestions of the usual 20-to-25-minute length). And in movement, innovation and risk-taking should prevail, even if you fail. So instead of three works heading off willy-nilly toward different nebulae, the current program had a link, with the same eight…

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BERKELEY—Is this a ballet company on speed? Or, much more likely, a dance troupe in a new genre best called Acroballet. Whatever the name, the Eifman Ballet from St. Petersburg Russia is a unique fireball of frenzy, playing out Boris Eifman’s “The Pygmalion Effect” dance drama in a three-day run here. Half of the 80-member cast traveled with this full staged work, dazzling the audience with faster-than-the-eye moves. I hope they brought their own chiropractor, as my neck is sore…

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Modern ballet at its most effusive marks the all-Ratmansky evening dubbed “The Shostakovich Trilogy.” In the modern mode, dancers bend, twist, lean, and go upside down, quite beyond classical ballet. And the San Francisco Ballet’s ensemble is impeccable in spinning an entire evening of Russian émigré Alexei Ratmansky’s choreography—-truly a winning combination to finish off a very rich SFB season. If at one extreme these performers can be compared to a well-tuned high-performance sports car, at the other they have…

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The finest 21st-century work of the current S.F. Ballet season so far is Liam Scarlett’s “Die Toteninsel,” where the dark and brooding mood of the tone poem is carried forward with a wealth of emotion. This is as somber as Scarlett’s previous “Frankenstein,” but not at all lurid. The British choreographer scored richly here, using the great (but rarely heard in concert) Rachmaninoff tone poem “The Isle of the Dead,” inspired by the Symbolist 1880 painting of the German romantic…

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Three very modern works on stage. In a nutshell: the eclipse ballet, the smartphone ballet and the mirror ballet. The latest San Francisco Ballet offerings in Program 5 are indeed very contemporary, but more immersed in high energy than meaning or story-telling. The meaning is concentrated in Christopher Wheeldon’s “Bound to” (2018), a timely social critique of smartphone madness, producing a population so mesmerized today  watching the mighty cell phone that they will jaywalk blithely oblivious of cars, stare at…

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WALNUT CREEK, CA—The focus is on that precious asset, professional ballet. At a time when larger cities (San Jose comes to mind) has seen such an asset vanish more than once, this suburban community does just fine with its mobile 10-dancer version, now living out  its silver-anniversary program in unfettered leaps and bounds. The Diablo Ballet’s celebration seen March 22 was exuberant, animated and entertaining: half dancing, half historical documentary. The film made a strong case for what a dance…

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You’ve got to admire the chutzpah of a frustrated Benjamin  Millepied, resigning his Paris Opera Ballet directorship the night before premiering his dazzling “Appassionata” there in 2016. This month the French choreographer set the S.F. Opera House afire with that same “Appassionata,” using absolute-minimum forces: Six dancers and a pianist (no orchestra). And not even pointe shoes. And he didn’t even resign. Bodies flying uninhibitedly about the vast stage, whirling, thrusting, grabbing. The high-energy piece set to Beethoven  brought the…

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