BALLET GALA: GETTING OFF ON THE RIGHT FOOT
                            Parties, Prosecco---and, Oh, Yes, Dance Too 
<>                                              By Paul Hertelendy 
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of Jan. 20-27, 2012
                                                                  Vol. 14, No. 40
           Throw out all the dance critics! With the San Francisco Ballet so on top of its game, as demonstrated in the gala program Jan. 19, what is there left to criticize? This is clearly one of the world-class ensembles, fine-honed to the nth degree, with perfection in even miniscule details. I was delighted that one dancer on stage slipped briefly, otherwise all the dance writers would be unemployed, off selling apples on scruffy street corners.
         There was nothing scruffy this night of black ties and elegant ball gowns, and champagne prices to match. The ushers needed crowbars to get all the revelers who had bought out the Opera House to enter, sit down and watch ballet. But when they did, they responded, with added whoops and hollers emanating from the rear.
          Some 13 SFB principals strutted their stuff impressively in the pot-pourri program. Perhaps the best testament to this troupe is that just with the principals omitted this night for lack of deck space—Feijoo, Long, Vilanoba, Luiz, Martin Cintas---you could still head up a dazzling  touring company.
          The true balletomane cannot afford to skip the gala night of pas de deux and excerpts---not unless the tuxedo is off at the cleaners, anyway. Admittedly, nothing was shown of the upcoming repertory season apart from “Number Nine.” But several of the gala’s fine import pieces  are not to be shown at all, including “Continuum,” “Solo” and “Lady of the Camellias.”
          The latter, John Neumeier’s pas-de-deux excerpt, was the night’s sensation, with the infinitely flexible prima donna Yuan Yuan Tan in the title role. Tan is purest poetry, playing the literary heroine (also notorious in the opera house), opposite guest artist Alexander Riabko. Along the way, she moves from 19th-century to a 21st-century bit of theater  when the heedlessly passionate partner almost imperceptibly whips off her somber dress and leaves her in pink underwear---one of the deftest transitions I’ve seen in ballet. This piece is as hot as it is enthralling, with Neumeier avoiding the movement clichés of the genre.
            Mechanistic ballet popped up in the most contemporary Wheeldon’s “Continuum” excerpt. To the sparse piano pieces by Ligeti, a couple seeks its destiny nebulously, with a variety of angular poses, bent knees, and squat positions. Sofiane Sylve and newcomer Vito Mazzeo brought it off with secure theatrical acumen.
            Hans van Manen’s fetching “Solo” features three males, solo only, in rapid succession, so light-footed you would swear they defied gravity (which, of course, is the great appeal of ballet over other dance forms). Yet smaller=scale was the theater piece Caniparoli “Solo.” The ubiquitous Damian Smith, who had just been featured at the S.F. Symphony in a Debussy program the week before, was masterful manipulating the mask, stalking about the stage like a tiger, and vacillating between the self-identity and the masked identity. The moves were closer to the gymnast’s floor exercise than to ballet.
            It was gratifying to witness the evolution to ballerina allure and poise of both Vanessa Zahorian (“Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux”) and Sarah van Patten (“Dance House”), paired with muscle-man Tiit Helimets and the lanky David Karapetyan.
            There were flashy and rather vacuous numbers: the mob scene of 24 canary-bright people in Wheeldon’s “Number Nine,” and a duo from the Soviet oldie Assafiev’s “Flames of Paris.”
            You had to sympathize with Maria Kochetkova. After her quaint but beautifully executed “Voices of Spring,” derisive audience laughter and applause greeted the team of stage-crew folk sweeping all the rose petals off the stage in repeated passes. You were reminded of the cleanup crew following a mounted horse parade on main street. Curtain, somebody, please!
            The orchestra and varied soloists were up to the occasion, now taking a break till the season opener Jan. 27 with Cranko’s powerful “Onegin.” The nine-program season features, in addition to three evening-length pieces, four world-premiere works.
             BALLET SURVIVAL---It's hard to conceive that in the 1970s, the SFB was at death's door, with dancers passing the fund-raising hat going door to door around town. Today, it's om easy street, with endowment swelled to more than $87,000,000....But that success may be sucking essential support away from other Bay Area companies. The Diablo Ballet and Ballet San Jose have both endured tough sledding financially in recent seasons. And now the Oakland Ballet, nearly 50 years old, has had to cancel its spring repertory season for want of funds. Could the SFB success story lead to the demise of numerous other professional Bay Area troupes??
                San Francisco Ballet, 79th anniversary season, Opera House, S.F. For info: (415) 965-2000, or go online. 

          ©Paul Hertelendy 2012
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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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