AN ANIMATED BALLET WITHOUT TOE SHOES. THE POINTE?  
                                              By D. Rane Danubian
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of Jan. 24-31, 2010
                                                                  Vol. 12, No. 55
            WALNUT CREEK, CA---Some 25 mi. east of San Francisco, the Lesher Center for the Arts here provides a full slate for the suburbanites: besides the usual art and theater, there’s the California Symphony, various touring attractions, and, on Feb. 5-6, the Smuin Ballet.
            And then you have the ballet companies that aren’t even doing ballet, like the Company C Ballet, essentially offering modern dance when viewed Jan. 23 doing its home season, with not a toe shoe in sight.
            It’s a high-energy chamber dance troupe under direction of Charles Anderson, who enriches the pot by bringing in numerous other choreographers. I find it appealing, vital and indefatigable carrying off a demanding repertoire. His dancers are clearly ballet-trained, but, beyond an arabesque or attitude here and there, you don’t see much of it in the fast-flying flat-shoes movements.
            The standout performer, much underutilized, is Patricia Perez, originally from Havana’s National Ballet School, and more recently with Ballet San Jose and the S.F. Ballet. She is as athletic as the others, but in addition she brings on an uncommon  dramatic theatrical quality: smoldering fire, pregnant pauses and soulful looks (best in compact halls like Lesher’s, viewed up close).
            This emerged in Anderson’s new “Akimbo,” where she paired with Robert Dekkers.
            Overall, Company C does some of the sexier dances. This was also evident in the other world premiere, Amy Seiwert’s “Dreams to Remember,” a jazz dance for five couples. It  offered strong male solos by both Mario Espinoza and, with a spikier style, the ultra-lean, acrobatic  Aaron Jackson. It’s am umusual composition, with some daring crotch lifts. This piece featuring all 11 members of the ensemble in fact had lift after lift after lift of every sort. Presumably, all the men are into extreme body-building, and the women at home in airborne exercises.
            Charles Moulton’s ingenious “Nine Person Precision Ball Passing” is an exercise in legless manipulation---literally, rapid-order rhythmic ball-passing between nine performers. It flies by so fast, it defies logic. Fun and games have never made a greater hit.
            Lar Lubovitch’s “Cavalcade” (1980) never jelled, even with the colorful streamers dazzling the eye. Certainly another rehearsal or two was indicated.
            But one misfire in four is allowed. In sum, Company C came through with a vigorous, demanding program executed effectively by a well-honed ensemble.
            All the music was prerecorded.
          DANCE NOTES---For the Bay Area, it was one of the busiest weeks of the season, with two programs at the S.F. Ballet, a guest booking by Chritopher Wheeldon's "Morphoses" troupe, and Company C.
            Company C Ballet, Charles Anderson artistic director, at the Lesher Center, Walnut Creek, Jan. 22-23. Next: April 24, and several May dates in various venues.  For info: (925) 708-0752, or go online.

        ©D. Rane Danubian 2010
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        D. Rane Danubian has been covering the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with relish -- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
    These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly) will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local artists as well.
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