DEPTH HELPS BALLET REACH HEADY HEIGHTS 
                                              By Paul Hertelendy 
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of April 15-22, 2010
                                                                  Vol. 12, No. 91
          When it comes to international status, a ballet company has to have abundant depth. And seeing a program in mid-run for a change, when the second (or third) casts are pulled in for elevated duty, demonstrates just how deep the talent at the San Francisco Ballet runs.
          It was the third of six performances of Program Seven on April 14, with most of the stars resting their (aching?) feet. But in two new works and a comedy reprise, the SFB was beautifully drilled and dancing with feeling.
            Resident Choreographer Yuri Possokhov’s “Classical Symphony” in its world-premiere run was a modern ballet with a very traditional bent---as if this contemporary, innovative artist wanted to show that he could also still bring off something traditional from his palette (a smart move if he ever intends to direct a ballet company, for which he appears eminently ready). This was a work of great vitality and flamboyance, with legions of males in perfect unison doing eye-grabbing jetés across the stage, with a double-tour tossed in here and there. The male lead was Hansuke Yamamoto, a true danseur noble given a major assignment and carrying it out with discipline and sensitivity.
            Maria Kochetkova, like Possokhov a Muscovite, again showed herself as the hummingbird of the troupe, nimble and agile, carrying off the pas de deux with Yamamoto elegantly, with ethereal lightness.
            Frances Chung and Kristin Long were major players here as well as in the beautifully executed “Rush” of Christopher Wheeldon, one of the hottest properties of today’s ballet world. The work new to the Opera House (originally created 2003)  is a very dynamic piece set to a memorable score of Martinu. And, in the prolonged adagio movement, Katita Waldo, about to retire, was a memorably aligned partner to Damian Smith, with the whole stage to themselves. Though overdoing the use of windmilling arms, the piece is aerial, with angular moves, and a degree of unity in the ensemble that had to be seen to be believed.
           In the most memorable lingering image, Long climbs up on the torso of a man standing and turns by stepping on his chest. Wheeldon apparently liked this innovation too, as it was repeated on stage. Meanwhile, Chung reeled off oh-so-neat  pirouettes. And, in the prolonged adagio movement, Katita Waldo, about to retire, was a memorably aligned partner to Damian Smith, with the whole stage to themselves.
            Jerome Robbins’ “The Concert” (1956) remains one of the funniest dance works ever created, drawing on sight-gags and pratfalls inspired by  films of Keaton, Chaplin, and the Marx brothers. The audience for a piano recital is a sketch, with the high-society dame, the devotee who hugs the piano, the music-hater who reads the newspaper in concert. The outrageous audience listening mostly to Chopin gives way to a student corps de ballet with a perennial misfit, then a line of hussars out of French grand opera, and eventually a massed-umbrella scene as if out of Seurat.
            I haven’t laughed so hard in ages, even though I’ve seen it a million times.
            After these programs, the season concludes with Tomasson’s “Romeo and Juliet”  May 1-9.
            The pit orchestra played dutifully under Nathan Fifield and Martin West.
            San Francisco Ballet, Program 7, at the Opera House, with orchestra. For info: (415) 865-2000, or go online.

        ©Paul Hertelendy 2010
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           Paul Hertelendy 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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