ArtsSF

There’s hope for us all when a lead dancer here moves on to choreography and finds his inspiration with 13thcentury Persian poets. The Frenchman Nicolas Blanc, a principal here shortly after the Millennium, turned to the poet Rumi in creating his new “Gateway to the Sun” for the San Francisco Ballet. The main character is the lonely, reflective Poet, presumably Rumi himself, separate but connected with the community around him. Max Cauthorn played that lead barefoot in a breakthrough dancing…

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Just when you thought they’d gone out of vogue—swans, mouse-kings, sylphs and all, with pantomime—story ballets are back this month, accounting for half of the six new works to date at the S.F. Ballet. Only now, it’s without all those kookie oldie characters. It’s not the kiddies’ tales of old any more. Sorry, no gnomes, just tomes of modern-ballet story-telling. And now, it’s not enough to dance; the cast must also act. The latest one—–No. five of the rare cornucopia…

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For the ballet’s 90th-season celebration, if you were looking for “A nice new white ballet,” forget it. The San Francisco Ballet came out with guns blazing, firing artistic six-shooters exuberantly in the air, and delving into deep drama where dance troupes often fear to tread. This was the new regime, loaded down with new thought-provoking works under new leadership, breaking with preconceived convention. It presented two story ballets as stormy as our the whirlwind winter  weather among the three world premieres….

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