January 27, 2010
Smuin Ballet’s Winter Concert Preview
Discovering new territory
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dance
October 24, 2009
Alonzo King’s Lines Ballet at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Dancing to the light of Jason...
October 18, 2009
Suzanne Farrell Ballet at Cal Performances
Preserving the Legacy
It’s hard to believe that all the works of choreographer George Balanchine are not graven in stone somewhere, that some exist merely in the memory of dancers who are now beginning to forget them. But no suitable notation exists in the world of dance; almost all written recording systems are flawed or awkward at best. Film and videography grew up while Balanchine was coming into his own, and the problems of recording that exist within the film industry...
June 6, 2009
Bolshoi performs ‘La Bayadère’ at Cal Performances
Demi, demi, grande plié, relevé...
Behind a lavish scrim of Oriental patterns lies an exotic world figured and reconfigured in over a century’s worth of imaginings by some of ballet’s most legendary dancers and choreographers.
Palm trees and waterfalls, sacred fires, airborne scarves of evanescent lightness and rhinestone-bedecked costumes are only the outward manifestations of the great Bolshoi Ballet’s production of La Bayadère that was performed at...
May 16, 2009
Smuin Ballet’s Spring Concert at Yerba Buena
Naughty Boy ...
It’s spring, and that means love is everywhere for the Smuin Ballet Company. Of the three pieces that make up the spring concert, which opened May 8 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and will move this coming weekend to the Dean Lesher in Walnut Creek, two were choreographed by the company’s late director Michael Smuin. Bouquet and Suite from St. Louis Woman were essential Smuin—romantic, sexy, accessible and entertaining.
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May 5, 2009
San Francisco Ballet Presents Balanchine’s ‘Jewels’
Glitter
In its second-to-last program of the 2009 season, San Francisco Ballet presented George Balanchine’s three-part Jewels. It’s impossible not to see the selection as an homage to Balanchine’s influence on American dance as well as a restatement of SF Ballet’s deep connection to the choreographer and his New York City company.
The three mini-ballets—“Emeralds,” “Rubies” and “Diamonds”—that form the piece were ostensibly inspired by...