It's been a tumultuous year, and it's hard to imagine what's coming – but whatever it is, it's going to be a bumpy ride. Looking back on this past year is difficult: events rise in the mind like tsunamis: the election of Obama, the Sarah Palin circus, the loss on Prop 8, the collapse of Lehman Bros. The only arts event that stands out like these is Milk, which has launched our hero into the Pantheon along with Spartacus, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King (not to mention Socrates and Jesus). The movie is myth-making of the first rank, and it's made a splash in my mind as big as any of these. Since seeing that movie, everything seems to be refracted through its prism.
So let's start with the choreography of Milk. Much has been said of Sean Penn's great performance, but it would be lost without the crowd scenes, the organizing, the near-riots, the parades through the city, the big scene that Harvey choreographed himself, on the spot (and his genius in the movie is knowing what to say and do on the spot): "Lead the crowd to City Hall, I'll step out through the front door and calm things down." It goes off like clockwork, and gives him the chance to speak when the whole world is watching directly to the frightened, isolated gay kids (say, in Jackson, Mississippi), to show them the beacon of San Francisco, "to give them hope. "
The choreography of that scene is brilliantly clear and unbelievably exciting, and it's classic. Where have I seen this before? O my God, it's Swan Lake: Odette steps just like this between the Prince, his hunters, and her swans, spreads her arms protectively, and says, "Please, don't kill my people."
There are layers upon layers of classical precedent for this scene. In Greek tragedy, Oedipus opens the Palace doors to address the swirling crowd. The leader cannot enter into his powers without the need of the people to ratify him, and finally to consecrate his memory to undying fame. The candle-lit parade, with which the movie ends, stretches for miles as the camera pans back on it, and in effect, welcomes the hero into Paradise.
The 75th anniversary of San Francisco Ballet, seen in the light of Milk, reminds me that in the same era when Harvey was supervisor, San Francisco Ballet was on the verge of bankruptcy. The dancers were on the streets, literally: led by ballerina Anita Paciotti, who's still with them, dressed in costume and shaking tin cups, they were begging citizens to "Save our Ballet." Another queer hero rose to this occasion, civic-minded and visionary. The savior of the ballet, and indeed the father of the dance world here as we know it now, turned out to be the arts administrator Richard LeBlond, whose reforms not only put SFB on firm ground but also raised the status of all the dance companies here. LeBlond's work solidified support for Margaret Jenkins and all the modern dancers she fostered, including Joe Goode, and also led to founding the Ethnic Dance Festival, which has made the SF dance scene second only to that of New York.
Goode's 29 Effeminate Gestures blew our minds in the late 80s, but it can't be imagined without Harvey Milk's demand that we all come out. One of the few dance images from this past year that can stand mention in this context is Goode's beautiful lesbian duet embedded in "the beauty that was mine, through the middle, without stopping," danced this past year by Axis Dance Company.
Other images flash by. How immensely satisfying the Beach Boys ballet "Deuce Coup" (choreographed by Twyla Tharp) turned out to be; the Joffrey can still dance that as if they were singing it. The Barbary Coast Cloggers dancing on their coffins. Kristin Long as Odile in SFB's Swan Lake (the bad girl, danced as a miracle of powermania). Merce Cunningham's dancers moving like creatures on another planet. Maria Kochetkova's (SFB) unbelievable lightness as Giselle; I've never seen anyone jump so high with no visible effort. The unbelievable virtuosity of the entire company of San Francisco Ballet as they danced every step thrown at them in their New Works festival. Courtney Elizabeth, corps dance who can do anything .
Wonder what the new year will bring. God bless us, every one.