Lines Ballet at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Tracings of light on a screen, which is gray like an overcast sky but golden as if shielding sunlight. The light is a dream or the muted ramblings of light behind the eyelid of a closed eye, so intimate as to be subconscious. Two bodies move through the space in dreamlike movement. One body folds into another, curling around. A sudden collapse. A slithering on the floor. A stuttering. Around the figures rises a watery sound from the sax. Pebbly, like small rocks churning in a rapid...

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Lines Ballet’s ‘The Steady Articulation of Perserverance’

Tracings of light on a screen, which is gray like an overcast sky but golden as if shielding sunlight. The light is a dream or the muted ramblings of light behind the eyelid of a closed eye, so intimate as to be subconscious. Two bodies move through the space in dreamlike movement. One body folds into another, curling around. A sudden collapse. A slithering on the floor. A stuttering. Around the figures rises a watery sound from the sax. Pebbly, like small rocks churning in a rapid...

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Mark Morris’ ‘Romeo and Juliet’ at Cal Performances

What would Mark Morris be without irony? And what is Shakespeare without words? Both of those questions are answered in part by the Mark Morris Dance Group’s performance of Romeo & Juliet, On Motifs of Shakespeare, which was presented by Cal Performances at Zellerbach Hall this past weekend. Not to say the Morris Romeo & Juliet lacked humor and whimsy. There were many touches of that in the production—especially the sets. Comprised of three trompe l’oeil...

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Lines Ballet’s ‘Long River High Sky’

When LINES Ballet describes itself as a “contemporary ballet company with a global artistic vision” it isn’t just rhetoric generating publicity copy, as last weekend’s series of performances clearly demonstrated. On stage at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the acclaimed dance company joined seven monks from the Shaolin USA temple for an extraordinary two-hour concert, Long River High Sky, in which performers at the top of their art and physical prowess...

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Smuin Ballet at Yerba Buena

  Slinky ballerinas In 2007 on April 23 the Smuin Ballet was rocked by the sudden death of its director Michael Smuin, who had not only founded the company but also set its choreographic style and developed the dancers for that choreography. This spring 2008, the company presents Dancin’ with Gershwin, a series of short pieces choreographed by Smuin to the...

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Oakland Ballet: ‘The Secret Garden’

Gardens of delight There is something splendid about the return of the Oakland Ballet Company. In just over a year it has returned to its former excellence, with capable and talented dancers performing in productions that are often...

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