DEVIL TAKES THE HINDMOST AT BALLET OPENER
                                              By D. Rane Danubian
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music
                                                                 Week of Nov. 20-27, 2004
                                                                  Vol. 7, No. 32
        WALNUT CREEK, CA---After a consolidation phase, the Diablo Ballet's 11th season got off the ground with a complement of eight for a season-opening program of revivals here Nov. 19-20.
        The complement was looking sharp at the modern-chamber-ballet opener, dancing crisply, nimbly, and often elegantly, with Tina Kay Bohnstedt doing the prominent ballerina turns.
        Clearly, much effort had gone into the program, but it lacked a certain impetus. Expecting eight dancers (plus a child) to fill the Regional Center for the Arts stage is stretching it. The choreography was thin, the decor minimal, and the audience hardly overwhelming the attractive facility's capacity. Live musicians consisted of one cellist.
        But there is quality there. In this hub community some 20 mi. east of San Francisco, Lauren Jonas' Diablo Ballet is a valued asset despite the cited shortcomings.
        Performing groups for decades have operated under the illusion that if something is for the kiddies, it's OK to be boring. Such is "The Magic Toy Store," Co-Artistic Director Nikolai Kabaniaev's 2002 revision of the immensely popular pastiche ballet of some 75 years ago, "La boutique fantasque," featuring orchestrations using Rossini's fantasy-filled piano music.
        Like the oldie, the Kabaniaev rethinking features the sure-fire timeless gimmick of life-size mechanical dolls dancing and interacting. The problem is that Kabaniaev expects a 20-minute choreographic idea to work out over a 48-minute length, with endless repetitions of the doll dances, costume changes, shop-owner pratfalls, and interwoven movements of the mobile (dolls') huts distressing similar to the ones we see parked in front of construction sites.
        With quick changes, shifting personae, and a mutually cross-dressed couple, the show appears to have close to a dozen players, sparked by the amazing little Jill-in-the-box Carina Brown constantly bugging her parents to buy her this or the other doll. The classical ballet emanates from the very effective ballerina (Bohnstedt) and the soldier smitten with her (Jekyns Pelaez). For eye-popping virtuosity, you were mesmerized by the high-leaping, quick-as-a-flash androgynous Diablo (Devil) of Edward Stegge.
        Idle thought: If a cross-dressing couple wants to get married, does it still qualify as a wedding between a man and a woman?
        The program opened with a far more modern ballet danced in tights, Christopher Stowell's "A Revealing Glimpse into the Obvious" for three couples which showed off attractive youth-maturity juxtapositions via Lauren Main de Lucia and Bohnstedt. This is the sort of piece that Daiblo Ballet can perform very well.
        Despite a lengthy mid-concert intermission, the whole show was over after just an hour and a half. A third ballet was clearly called for, but it's nowhere in sight.
        Diablo Ballet, Regional Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek, Nov. 19-20. Next performances: March 25-26, 2005. For info: (925) 943-1775, or go online.
        ©D. Rane Danubian 2004
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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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