SF Ballet: Don Quixote

Last night I attended SF Ballet's new production of Don Quixote and I was left speechless.  It was without a doubt the best production of Don Q I have ever seen in my life.  (For this reason I fear this will not be a compelling review, rather, just me gushing adoration for this ballet).  This new production features gorgeous original costumes and sets by Martin Pakledinaz; it was a feast for the eyes.  In fact last night was an orgy for all my senses, the music, the dancing, the costumes and sets, the whisky I drank during the first intermission, all delicious.  What really made this production was the jaw-dropping performances given by both Maria Kotchetkova as Kitri and Taras Domitro as Basilio (they are posing in the above video).  I have expressed my adulation for Kotchetkova on this blog several times already, but after last night I want to bow down and kiss her probably mangled feet from the incandescent dancing she performed.  I did not know what to expect from Domitro, but just like Kotchetkova every step and every movement was elegant and virtuosic, and he was a wonderful comedic actor.  During the final wedding pas de deux I literally could not stop myself from smiling.  Not only did they perform the classic steps with chutzpah as well as grace, they infused extra bravura that galvanized the audience into uproarious applause.  I have never seen an audience so excited, so involved, so delighted.  To put a large ripe cherry on top of the already gluttonously good cake that was last night, I experienced all of this from Box Q, perhaps the most wonderful vantage point to experience any production on the War Memorial Opera House stage.

Nataly and me in front of the door to Narnia, I mean our seats for Don Quixote.

SF Ballet: Balanchine (I'll Never Quit You)

This week SF Ballet is presenting their "All Balanchine" program featuring Divertimento No. 15, Scotch Symphony, and The Four Temperaments.  I saw the program Friday night and it was stunning.  Many dancers and dance-makers nowadays like to make shallow complaints about "Balanchine being overdone" or "not finding a connection in the work."  To those naysayers, I say, that is ridiculous.  I'm not saying everyone needs to love the work as zealously as I do, but the beauty and genius of his choreography is unmatched in its ability to transcend.  Helgi Tommason, the artistic director, did a wonderful job choosing three ballets of very different styles and qualities that showed the breadth and depth of Balanchine's oeuvre.

The program opened with Divertimento No 15 set to Mozart.  This ballet is often described as "crystalline," everything about it is so pure and clean and void of any superfluous accents or nuances that can often stifle movement.  Every movement appears completely necessary for the dancers and for the music.  My favorite SFB prima, Maria Kotchetkova, shined in this work, performing the most difficult petit allegro with effortless energy that allowed the audience to let the movement and music wash over them and not focus on the demanding technical execution.

I knew very little about Scotch Symphony before the program.  It is the first of Balanchine's non-narrative works I've seen that uses a backdrop.  While the ballet is plotless it draws influence from the Romantic ballets, specifically La Sylphide as well as the military marches of the Highland Scots.  I was particularly impressed by the variation for the Scottish girl in the beginning who  dons red pointe shoes and performs the same choreography as the men before  breaking away into her own solo.  Akin to the Romantic ballets, much of Scotch Symphony is a romantic pas de deux; while the two leads had strong chemistry, I was slightly disappointed in Sarah Van Patten's performance.  I wanted her to be more generous.  Otherwise the ballet was tender and humorous and featured some very impressive Bournonville-esque footwork.

The program ended with The Four Temperaments, long hailed as Balanchine's neoclassical masterpiece.  This work is so beautiful and profound that I almost hate to try to attach words to it.  The "Melancholic" variation has always been one of my favorite Balanchine solos (something I've always wished I could dance) and Jaime Garcia Castilla danced it exquisitely.  His body moved seamlessly between languorous back arches to lofty leaps.  The choreography and the non-costumes of practice clothes are unforgiving to anything less than perfection, and luckily every member of the ensemble delivered.

Also, of all the programs I've seen this season, the orchestra sounded particularly luscious for this program, adding, I'm sure, to the post-performance elation I felt walking out of the Opera House.

Eiko and Koma: Fragile

The average audience member accustomed to the safety and predictability of the proscenium stage experience often meets the phrase “performance installation” with cringes.  The phrase is so vague.  Neither “performance” nor “installation” explicate anything beyond someone does something somewhere.  This open-endedness frequently breeds heavy-handedness on grand topics; with few boundaries it is easy to lose focus both as an artist and as an audience.  This is not performance installation specific, but it is more prevalent in the genre.  Fortunately, when a performance installation is successful in maintaining a focus and creating its own boundaries the effects are startling and profound.  This was the case with the presentation of Eiko and Koma’s Fragile at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.  The Japanese husband and wife duo accomplished the creation of a microcosm that while founded in the simplicity of two human bodies in repose became complex in its investigation of the body as an historical vessel and the construction of gender.

The physical space created for the performance was textured and organic.  Within the walls of the Center’s white box theatre an inner room was delineated with papier-mâché style canvas partitions with black feathers embedded into the material and holes of varying sizes that offered glimpses into the womb-like arena where the performance took place.  Within the center of this installation lay Eiko and Koma completely nude and painted an ivory hue, lying atop a bed of black feathers.  Behind them sat the Kronos Quartet who accompanied the performance with live music.  Upon becoming accustomed to the nuances of the atmosphere created by the installation the focus of the performance was dominated by the infinitesimal subtleties in movement performed by Eiko and Koma.  Both performers appeared androgynous, equally hairless and covered in paint, transcending the cultural norms of the gendered body on stage.  Although the frame and musculature of the two differed, the male’s sex, and front side for that matter, was never completely revealed, creating a complement and counterpoint to the highly exposed female body.  With the female body frontally exposed and the male body’s continual posterior presentation, the two were in essence two halves of one whole.

By focusing on the most mundane gestures and slow sustained movement, like the vulnerability of an exposed chest, the intensity of an unblinking gaze, or a gradual reaching, Eiko and Koma remove the illusion of the abiding gendered self and reveal an historical body that reflects the shared acts of gender normativity and continues into the foundation of gender identity.  In Fragile the viewer is confronted with bodies void of virtuosity or façade.  The performers are not only exposing their bodies to an audience, they are exposing each body in the room.  It is this inclusive quality that distinguishes it as a successful use of the installation forum and genre.  Throughout the performance the lights continually transition from a focused spot on the two performers to raised house lights that fall on every body in the space, performer and audience member alike.  This luminous effect does not allow the audience to become completely lost in the microcosm created by Eiko and Koma, when the lights came up on everyone, the viewer was reminded of their own body, their body’s relationship to the other bodies in the space, and their body’s own gender performance.