WORKING, WORKING THROUGH A NEW BALLET  
                                              By D. Rane Danubian
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of Nov. 1-8, 2009
                                                                  Vol. 12, No. 29
         The latest program by San Francisco's Lines Ballet showed off a brand-new Alonso King opus that simply made dance look like work. Hard work.
            The straining, almost tortured moves in the world premiere piece “Refraction” offered hunched shoulders, deep-waist bends and hefty twists by the bare-chested men. The abstract piece offered tension, but little flow. And the very laid-back jazz music by Jason Moran (heard prerecorded on Oct. 30) lacked the clear pulses for unified movement on stage by the company of nine.
            These are dances of desperation---perhaps dances for hard times, like today’s.
            Though labeled a ballet, King’s modern company has tossed out the toe shoes. But still, quite a few more ballet moves, with high battements, emerge in “The Moroccan Project” (2005), with a live pit group providing the chants, refrains and instrumentals of traditional Moroccan music, including even a distant Hebrew song for peace. Flow did permeate this work invitingly as subgroups in many permutations performed in well-coordinated choreography. Here was choreographer King at his best, showing once again his talent for wedding movement effortlessly to the music.
            The highlight of this 40-minute work was a humorous sequence of a woman trying every possible way to break through an impenetrable wall of four men’s backs. After the wall dissolves, it reforms---as if the quintet rather enjoyed the highly energetic exercise.
            The ensemble showed good balance---not a weak link anywhere in the line. And the Novellus Theater at Yerba Buena clearly suits both performers and audience to a T.
            Alonso King’s Lines Ballet, through Nov. 1. Novellus Theater, San Francisco. For info: (415) 863-3040, or go online. 

        ©D. Rane Danubian 2009
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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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