When Helgi Tomasson took over San Francisco Ballet 20-odd years ago, the naysayers thought his programming would be boring — tasteful, but with no dramatic flair, no juice. How wrong that has turned out to be.
Program 1, which opened Tuesday, Jan. 30, and continues through this weekend, opened with a stunning display of dance power — no stories, but who needs a story when the dancing itself is as exciting as a prizefight?
The heart of the program is Artifact Suite, a ballet that smacks of authoritarianism, as does most of choreographer William Forsythe's work. Though he grew up in New York, where he was the best rock-and-roll dancer in his high school, Forsythe has lived and worked in Frankfurt, Germany for decades. His ballets always have at least a hint of leather, and of that insistence that's dominated popular dance music ever since rock and roll conquered swing.
Artifact's dancers are in skin-tight dark green; even the pointe shoes look fetishistic. If it's not black leather, the industrial lighting is so harsh, the dancers look like they're under arrest. The costumes could be blue, the lights are yellow sodium-vapor things, you can't tell.
There's a lot you can't tell in Artifact Suite . Often you can't tell who's dancing or why the lights have to be hitting us in the eyes with such painful force. But it needs to get under your skin, for there's truth in it.
Forsythe is true to our times. Artifact Suite was carved out of a work that was new in 1984, and there's still something Orwellian about the atmosphere, even if the ballet's most shocking effects are no longer new. The kamikaze fire-curtain, which falls like a guillotine at random moments, hitting the stage like blitzkrieg, is still shocking, and the music's so loud it's like having your nipples twisted.
The first half feels Egyptian, as if we're looking at rituals performed deep in a pyramid. Every time the curtain falls, it goes back up on another angle of a scene where dancers outline a square space. In front of them, a priestess, "She who must be obeyed" (Elana Altman), stands with her back to us, moving her arms commandingly, signaling semaphore-style. Every dancer mimics her, their shadows echoing them. Meantime, two ballerinas tilt, plunge, and split themselves, pushed and supported by powerful male partners, through their maximal range of movement. It's as if their amplifiers had been turned up to 11, as has the volume on a recording of Bach's Violin Partita No. 2 (played with supreme power by Nathan Milstein). The second section is propelled by bombastic piano music by the late Eva Crossman-Hecht. It's music of stunning inanity, but who cares, it's got the drive of techno/house; performed by Margot Kazimirska.
Anyone who knows what it means to dance your guts out must go see the passion that Muriel Maffre and Lorena Feijoo put out in their dancing. It's like there's no tomorrow. They're matched by the corps dancers. The women of this company normally dance sweet and soft, but here they're Valkyries. Lily Rogers is unbelievable in the second half, as is Courtney Elizabeth, and among the men, the short list: Rory Hohenstein, Jaime Garcia Castilla, and Matthew Stewart. SFB's whole company is dancing like they're on fire.
Forsythe's own company will bring Three Atmospheric Studies to Cal Performances in Berkeley; it premieres here Feb. 22. If Artifact speaks to you, check out what Forsythe is up to now.
Garden party
Also on the ballet's program was Balanchine's devilishly difficult ballet to Mozart, Divertimento No. 15, which was conducted by George Cleve and danced by a marvelous ensemble as if its wicked intricacies were just little nothings. The whole thing has the flavor of a garden party, some reason for friends to get together, dress up, and enjoy each other's company. Exquisite, special light. When Balanchine made it in 1956, he had maybe the best company he ever would.
Kristin Long was first among equals in this crowd. Nicolas Blanc, Gennadi Nedvigin, and Jaime Garcia Castilla were their three cavaliers, which created a sweet asymmetry. Frances Chung and Katita Waldo were especially bright among the others.
James Sofranko was especially deep into his role in Aunis, the tender trio that captures the atmosphere of a French coastal town: working men in black pants and white shirts in a dreamlike folk dance to accordion-played polka, tango, jig. The piece is thick with nostalgia, and very moving. Rory Hohenstein and Garrett Anderson were his alter egos.
The ballet's second program opened last Thursday. As yet unseen, its highlight should be the new version of the great Ballets Russes sensation The Firebird, newly remade by SFB choreographer-in-residence Yuri Possokhov. Stravinsky's famous music is one of the great hits of 20th-century music. Possokhov, who grew up in Moscow and loved folk-dancing before he got into ballet, is a natural to bring this folktale to the stage and make it dance. The spectacular Yuan Yuan Tan should make a dazzling Firebird. Also on that program is The Dance House, which choreographer David Bintley made here in 1995 as a loving memorial to a dancer-friend who died of AIDS, whose characteristic way of moving is enshrined in the ballet's central adagio.