danceviewwest The
DanceView Times, San Francisco Bay Area edition |
Volume 1, Number 4 An online supplement to DanceView magazine
A Transcendent "Diamonds"
Jewels By
Rachel Howard Overheard walking out of the Kirov’s Fokine program at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall: "If that’s ballet, I’m there!" The enthusiastic convert was a man, probably 35-ish, and seeing as we’d just been treated to a particularly lustful rendition of Scheherazade, I guessed his newfound zeal was inspired more by the scantily clad physiques on display than by the stunningly recreated Bakst sets, or the Maryinsky Orchestra’s lush sound, or, one coudl only hope, the dancing itself. But perhaps
I am too skeptical. For if that man had returned to see Jewels
the following Sunday, I’d lay bets that he, like so many in attendance,
would have walked out of the far more demure "Diamonds"
spouting equal zeal. With Daria Pavlenko in the lead and a crystalline
corps, this sometimes perfunctory finale to Balanchine’s only full-length
abstract work was one of the best I've ever seen. Living Graham
Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley by
Rita Felciano What do you do as an artistic director if you program a masterpiece that will outclass nearly any other ballet you choose to stand beside it? Add to this conundrum a budget that has just been cut by twenty percent and a deficit of over a million dollars. You also have thirty-five dancers who want to be on that stage and who will not relish doing so in front of empty seats, of which there are 2665 for every performance. One thing that you can do is rely on what you already own and then you call on your friends for help. Which is exactly what Dennis Nahat, the ever ebullient and ever resilient artistic director of the struggling, but dancing better than ever, Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley did for its first program of the new season. Framing
an excellent performance of Graham’s Appalachian Spring
were two guaranteed crowd pleasers, Michael Smuin’s 1982 Stravinsky
Piano Pieces and Nahat and Ian Horvath’s US from 1975.
They were safe choices. Clearly, even if he were inclined to do so, Nahat
did not feel that he could take risks.
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What's
On This Week OCT
21-NOV: 2 SMUIN BALLET OCT
22 AND 26: LIVELY FOUNDATION
OCT 23-26: KATE CORBY & DANCERS
OCT: 23-25 MOTION LAB OCT
24: ALWIN NIKOLAIS A CELEBRATION TOUR
OCT 24-25: SJDANCECO AND DANCEWORKS SJSU Calendar Listings courtesy of IN DANCE, a FREE monthly publication of Dancers' Group at http://www.dancersgroup.org Faulty Magic
Motion Lab By
Rachel Howard Motion
Lab's latest show billed itself as a night of "kinetic and sonic
alchemy," the elements involved being Kathleen Hermesdorf's choreography
and Albert Mathias' looping, club-like music. As a program note even explained,
"Alchemy is an ancient system of natural magic that 'implants heavenly
things in earthly objects by means of specific alluring charms used at
the right moment'." Blame it on bad magic, then, or faulty timing,
but Friday's show at ODC Theater, which continues next weekend, was sorely
lacking in either transformation or transfixing moments.
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