by Leigh Witchel
The third program of San Francisco Ballet’s next@90 Festival, awe9, ranged from pure dance to pure drama.
Robert Garland, who was Resident Choreographer of Dance Theatre of Harlem and has since been named Artistic Director, made a choice inspired by his director, Arthur Mitchell. It was natural for him to choose to do neo-classicism straight up, but a dicey choice for a commission from the nation’s top post-Balanchine company.
Garland opted for Mozart’s “Haffner Serenade,” well played by SFB’s orchestra, which had been working overtime all week. The simple costumes were designed by Pamela Cummings: an outfit built like a onesie for the men, except two-tone and accessorized with a jabot. The women’s attire was also relatively simple: bodices for women with two-tone bell tutus and a couple of layers of tulle.
Like many choreographers devoted to it, Garland is continually looking for his own style in classicism that incorporates his experiences: his male lead, Cavan Conley, abruptly doo-wopped back and forth, then ripped off multiple pirouettes with a seamless landing.
The female lead, lanky soloist Isabella DeVivo, initially trained at the School of American Ballet and had a wonderful, energetic and Balanchinean quality. She instinctively got what Garland was looking for, with fast footwork and blistering pas de bourrées.
Designer Jim French turned the lights down to twilight for an adagio for the quartet of men in the ensemble, then Garland brought Conley in to walk and pose. The women joined for an amiable dance that later became a quadrille, ending with the men partnering one-handed to dip the women into penchée at the end.
DeVivo led the women in a quintet that moved into a dance for two couples; like the Mozart, “Haffner Serenade” was a very happy work, and reveled in skill: De Vivo did a tricky chain of inside turns to outside ones, then Conley went through a packed, complicated manège with no trouble.
Yet in the brutal and insecure world of ballet commissions, Garland is not what is thought of as a guest choreographer. He’s a company choreographer. It’s assumed – not usually rightly – that classical works can be made in-house. But in some cases, that’s correct. In 1991 Helgi Tomasson made “Haffner Symphony” to the other commission Mozart received from Sigmund Haffner. Garland made the ballet Tomasson would have, had he been in the line up: the one that thought more about maintaining and showing off the dancers than its own ambitions.
The plot of Jamar Roberts’ “Resurrection” was described by him as “an austere and malicious Queen uses her powers of persuasion, beauty, and magic in her quest to find a suitor to love and assist her in the rulership of her tribe.” When she couldn’t find a suitable mate (evidently, she’s got the wrong apps on her phone) she decided to reanimate one. To her shock, he wasn’t into it, so she decided to use stronger tactics of control.
If this sounds like it would have been an incoherent mess, hold up. In its own crazy and completely over-the-top way it was a lot of fun. The other contenders for Festival MVPs, Jennifer Stahl and Sasha De Sola, got the night off, but Dores André was out there chewing the scenery and making “Resurrection” work.
A haze covered the set of gray arches and various flats that Roberts also designed. Even without recourse to the program, André seemed to be a female Dr. Frankenstein. She zapped some poor guy with what seemed like an electrical shock then rolled him back into the smoke.
There was another body, Isaac Hernández, in the shadows in front. Four men picked him up, one on each limb, and slowly walked him back. Four women entered to Mahler’s shivering violins; they reached round Hernández and put a bright red vest on him. He took it off and fled.
Two couples performed an energetic duet before everyone raced in with their arms flung out and chests wide. The two couples dragged off and a trio of two women and a man took over, slowly clapping overhead.
A long dancing section followed for four couples in the center and Wanting Zhao and Aaron Robison at either side. Then back to the drama; Hernández ran in pursued by André. He did crazy jumps, she came towards him like poison, overacting as if her life depended on it.
She walked over him, then on him. She placed him at the center, put the red vest back on him, then controlled his movements as if he were a marionette. André was selling intensity like a Graham sorceress. With a gesture she brought him down to the floor. My notes at this point: “RUN AWAY RUN AWAY.”
But suddenly, Hernández took off the vest and put it on her. Even wearing it, André regained her powers and controlled two men in the ensemble. It all was fabulously bonkers.
Zhao and two corps women helped André recover. They slipped off the vest, and she danced a solo. The men trapped Hernández and roughed him up, dragging him to her, then the whole group joined in the mayhem as she controlled their motions. They formed a diagonal and repeated the overhead clap.
Hernández relented slightly, as she was on the ground, he offered his hand to help her up. Of course, that wasn’t a good idea. She threw him and he ran off with her in pursuit as the work finished.
“Ressurection” might have been ridiculous, but it was never boring. And it may be a better direction for Roberts to head in than the ones he’s tried so far. It felt more kinetic and energetic than his other work for ballet companies, as if he were making movement, not classroom steps.
Australian choreographer Danielle Rowe provided “Madcap,” the most satisfying work of the festival. And it wasn’t ballet.
Before the curtain rose we heard screams, laughter and applause. Myles Thatcher, dressed as a clown, walked towards the front with his back to us. We knew we weren’t going to see ballet steps; Thatcher’s outfit included big red shoes. There was applause, but he wound up going too far and was cut off by the curtain. He still wasn’t facing us, but we could see the sigh in his back. Walking into a bright spotlight, he seemed stunned as he shielded his eyes.
At the other side of the stage, the light picked out Elizabeth Powell, a female clown called “The Oracle.” She lip-synced a voice-over: “You are now about to see something you’ve never seen before. Something you’ve never even dreamed of. It’s all in your head.”
The curtain rose on a pack of clowns dancing and singing, Powell lifted Thatcher up, took his hat and let balls fall out of it. He stepped out of his big shoes into the spotlight and barely managed to do something resembling juggling.
Like a circus, the piece had several acts: a comic male trio, a duet for Davide Occhipinti and Henry Sidford balancing one giant red nose between them. Jasmine Jimison, in silver, was a ballerina dancing to tinkling music as if she were on a music box while Powell taunted Thatcher with a cracked mirror.
Pär Hagström’s music turned dissonant as Thatcher’s body betrayed him. His hands, seemingly no longer in his control, tickled and skritched him. He took off his jacket, and the group carried and further disrobed him. He and Powell moved among each other and the clowns, she wrapped round him. He crawled under a diagonal of clowns, she walked up their backs, he fell into their arms.
They carried him and took off his pants and ruff until he was in a union suit. Powell gave him a blue balloon, Thatcher twisted it into a dog, a young man dressed in an identical outfit to Thatcher came over and popped it. Parker Garrison had gorgeous line and huge extensions; his sad solo was the first time that “Madcap” looked like a ballet instead of a theater piece.
Thatcher wound up cradled in Powell’s arms. The other women danced for him, and sometimes with him. A celebration turned into a big finale: singing and dancing. Thatcher took his skullcap and plopped a rolled-up towel Powell handed him on his head – TADA! The cast all laughed wildly.
Powell brought Thatcher’s arms to his face to prompt him to remove his makeup, and talked to him as she crawled round him: “We are dreams – Surprise!”
He pressed Jimison over his head as the cast surrounded him. They unbuttoned part of his union suit as if it had become pajamas and laid him to rest before vanishing behind the scrim. Powell’s voice, “Open your eyes!”
Thatcher woke up as the lights blacked out.
“Madcap” both felt like a circus tale and a dream, almost a Maurice Sendak story for adults. At times it was so technicolor and trippy that it got exhausting. But it also showed the range of the dancers. This was closer to tanztheater and they pulled it off. There’s little ballet in “Madcap,” so it doesn’t feel as if it should be core repertory but it’s a solid novelty addition.
The three programs put on at SFB showed off the company’s versatility and strength in dancing, in design, and also in music. There were heavy loads the entire week for the whole orchestra, particularly for the violin and cello soloists, Cordula Merks and Eric Sung. Of the dancers, André, Stahl and De Sola seemed to hold up the repertory.
Pulling this off at all was a major achievement. But will much durable repertory emerge from the effort? It isn’t likely. The best of the works were the ones that ranged farthest from ballet. Still, the first new works festival in 2008 had bigger names, including Paul Taylor and Mark Morris, but no better a batting average.
In New York especially, when we think of ballet festivals, our imaginations turn to the 1972 Stravinsky Festival at New York City Ballet. But a festival that produced several masterpieces that are still in repertory isn’t the norm, it’s a massive exception. Festivals are about the profligacy of the occasion.
copyright © 2023 by Leigh Witchel
“Haffner Serenade,” “Resurrection,” “Madcap” – San Francisco Ballet
War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, CA
February 9, 2023
Cover: Dores André in “Resurrection.” Photo © Lindsay Thomas.
Got something to say about this? Sound off here.
[Don’t miss a thing! We’ll send you a notification of every article we post if you sign up with your email. (The signup is right below, scroll down). We promise you won’t be deluged and we won’t spam you either.]
