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Datebook | San Francisco Arts & Entertainment Guid •

Is ‘Frankenstein’ cinematic or a slog? Two takes on S.F. Ballet’s monster hit

Liam Scarlett’s “Frankenstein” is a spectacular ticket-selling phenomenon, so popular that San Francisco Ballet is offering it twice this season, in addition to taking it on tour to Southern California in October. Passionate standing ovations have greeted this three-act ballet based on the Mary Shelley novel ever since its North American premiere here eight years ago. Audiences love the special effects, bold scenery, and familiar gothic story. But the reaction from critics — the late Allan Ulric...
Fjord Review •

A Feminist Raymonda

It’s a matter of personal taste whether the radical re-interpretation of Petipa’s choreography works (I didn’t envy the ballerinas in having to dance it this way), but dramatically the action that follows is indecipherable, and a missed opportunity. Raymonda finishes the solo and walks off arm-in-arm with her new husband, John de Bryan. Nothing seems changed in their body language towards each other; Raymonda socializes among the party guests and all seems well. John de Bryan takes his variation...
San Francisco Chronicle •

Review: S.F. Ballet’s ‘Raymonda’ doesn’t solve all of the classic’s problems, but delivers spectacular dancing

Through nearly 180 minutes of this three-act ballet, the company’s dancers launch themselves into some of the most athletic and technically challenging steps of the repertoire. There are marathon passages of double tours en l’air, rapid batterie that seem to turn the men’s feet into Cuisinart blades and enough hops en pointe to make an audience member feel concerned about bruised toenails falling off after the curtain calls.

Through nearly 180 minutes of this three-act ballet, the company’s dan...
Datebook | San Francisco Arts & Entertainment Guid •

‘Joy is resistance’ at 20th anniversary Black Choreographers Festival

The crowd was overflowing at the Black Choreographers Festival’s 20th anniversary.“This is looking like community coming out to support, so you know our hearts are full right now,” Laura Elaine Ellis said from the Dance Mission Theater stage on Saturday, Feb. 22, standing next to festival co-founder Kendra Kimbrough Barnes as latecomers squeezed into the last remaining seats and children dropped cross-legged to the floor.This was excitement with a higher purpose. As the poem that launched Dimens...
Fjord Review •

Made in England

And yet, on the War Memorial stage in mid-February, the San Francisco Ballet was dancing more beautifully than ever—so beautifully that I made sure to return for the second casts, and was moved all over again. As the essayist and activist Rebecca Solnit has recently reiterated, nonstop anger “does not make good organizers or sustainable activists, because anger is exhausting for everyone . . . This is not about what emotions we have. It’s about what work we do.” Between anger and the work, we al...
San Francisco Chronicle •

S.F. Ballet’s ‘Cool Britannia’ is the perfect date-night triple bill

The ballet they were dancing was Christopher Wheeldon’s “Within the Golden Hour,” created here in 2008, and now revitalized as the middle panel of a triple-bill that, for its first two-thirds, would make an excellent date night.

The ballet they were dancing was Christopher Wheeldon’s “Within the Golden Hour,” created here in 2008, and now revitalized as the middle panel of a triple-bill that, for its first two-thirds, would make an excellent date night.

The official theme of this second progra...
Fjord Review •

Timeless Twyla

But we haven’t even gotten to the big news on this program yet, the brand-new dance: “Slacktide.” It marks Tharp’s return to working with the music of Philip Glass, nearly 40 years after her landmark “In the Upper Room.” (After a slow-motion ensemble opening, the dancers entering as though moving through water, “Slacktide” actually launches with the exquisite Marzia Memoli hoofing it up in bouncing phrases from “In the Upper Room.”) “Slacktide” is not as consistently formally mind-blowing as “In...
Fjord Review •

Beauty goes Big

To me, and I’m presuming to other ballet lovers who aren’t quite fanatic enough to spend weeks poring over Harvard’s Sergeyev Collection of notations, the conversation around this staging is also wonderfully educational. Did you know that “Sleeping Beauty’s” premiere in 1890 didn’t include a wedding pas de deux variation for the prince, because the dancer, Pavel Gerdt, didn’t have the technique for it? But Boal and Fullington have included the variation for the prince developed later, and what a...
Fjord Review •

Love and Lust

Sasha De Sola was Manon the next evening, and her interpretation impressed me because of the intelligence she brought to softening her natural tendencies as an actress. I don’t think it’s just De Sola’s combination of blonde hair and bright eyes that gives her a princess’ aura, and she’s unparalleled at playing the vain, preening type. But for Manon, she toned all that down. Reactions happened in stages rather than in sudden shocks—Manon can’t afford to be disturbed or offended when the Monsieur...
San Francisco Chronicle •

Misogyny or masterpiece? ‘Manon’ at S.F. Ballet feels all too relevant

But “Manon” was created in 1974. And for 51 years now, “Manon” has been both heralded as a heartbreaking work of psychological complexity and bemoaned as an overstuffed fantasia of misogyny. What advocates and detractors might agree on is the ballet’s enduring relevance in connecting two themes: extreme wealth inequality and the entrapment of women. This critic arrived at the War Memorial Opera House prepared to once again find “Manon” problematic and frustrating.

But “Manon” was created in 197...
San Francisco Chronicle •

‘I’m excited to feel something’: S.F. Ballet Opening Night Gala makes space for emotional release

Unfortunately, even with some of the finest dancers in the world onstage and one of the best ballet orchestras in the business in the pit, the next 90 minutes proved certain kinds of feeling can become monotonous.

Unfortunately, even with some of the finest dancers in the world onstage and one of the best ballet orchestras in the business in the pit, the next 90 minutes proved certain kinds of feeling can become monotonous.

“Passion! Intrigue! Intensity!” promised the pre-curtain video promoti...
Datebook | San Francisco Arts & Entertainment Guid •

Black choreographers look back to move forward in 2025

Every milestone naturally brings reflection, but the Black Choreographers Festival’s 20th anniversary slated for February is powered by something far more profound than nostalgia.The festival will launch Feb. 7 with a panel discussion at the Museum of the African American Diaspora celebrating BCF’s exhibition, “Spirit of Sankofa.” Sankofa is a principle from the Akan people of Ghana literally meaning “go back and get it,” often represented by the symbol of a bird flying with eggs of knowledge in...
Datebook | San Francisco Arts & Entertainment Guid •

Best of 2024: Dance took an emotional ride from the horrific to the hip

The year in Bay Area dance was an emotional ride. New leaders brought in fresh visions and audiences. At the same time, established hubs faced economic challenges. Notably, the Lines Dance Center, for decades an anchor of the dance community, struggled to bring bodies back into its building at Seventh and Market post-pandemic and shifted from running a robust and diverse roster of classes to hosting just a few teachers who rent space by the hour.The personal losses felt sudden and shocking this...
Fjord Review •

Balanchine's America

I’m of the camp that thinks this was a mistake, muting a bold work of art and leaving us with just, you know, some garden variety genius choreography. But there are compensations: when Balanchine took out the caller he also added a stirring, soul-laid-bare solo for the male dancer, and Kyle Davis’s rendering of this, simultaneously dignified and vulnerable, was the emotional center of this staging by PNB artistic director Peter Boal. Walking across the stage with one hand to hip and the other ex...
Datebook | San Francisco Arts & Entertainment Guid •

Review: SFDanceworks’ seventh season spans horror and delight with spectacular dancing

The opportunity to fully inhabit one’s fear and horror can be a surprising gift in shocking times. German choreographer Marco Goecke’s blood-curdling, scream-punctuated solo “Äffi” hardly made for escapist entertainment three days after a harrowing election, but as the final offering at SFDanceworks’ seventh season triple-bill, it offered visceral honesty. Juxtaposed with the program’s centerpiece, a premiere by Los Angeles-based JA Collective, it was mercifully offset by the purest, smartest, f...
Datebook | San Francisco Arts & Entertainment Guid •

Review: Fresh choreographers offer burst of comic delight at RawDance

There’s a bright spot, thank heavens, in the middle of RawDance’s 20th anniversary season at ODC Theater, the bicoastal troupe’s West Coast home.In “Refer,” the second offering on a slate of four premieres, Kelly Del Rosario and Erin Yen explode to life. Dancing in their own choreographic debuts, the company’s two most charismatic members caper across the stage like comic book characters. The music, by the prolific Oakland-based composer Aaron Gold, is textured, high-energy and inflected with ol...
Fjord Review •

Imperfect Beauty

I gave “Black Wave” three consecutive views because Lang’s past works for PNB have proven she belongs to a rank of ballet choreographers operating not just as step-makers but as true artists—her “Let Me Mingle Tears with Thee,” a treatment of Pergolesi’s “Stabat Mater,” was one of the most memorable ballets I saw in 2023. Lang always works with music of substance; she creates clear but nuanced movement with interest in every phrase; and each ballet she makes draws you into a world apart. In “Bla...
San Francisco Chronicle •

Review: State of Play Festival proves the place to be for the future of West Coast dance

A quick survey of the stadium-style rows indeed revealed several artistic directors and dancers representing the Bay Area’s most notable troupes in attendance. And yet the mood was more family reunion than powerhouse conference.

A quick survey of the stadium-style rows indeed revealed several artistic directors and dancers representing the Bay Area’s most notable troupes in attendance. And yet the mood was more family reunion than powerhouse conference.

Whether you were more eager to receive h...
Datebook | San Francisco Arts & Entertainment Guid •

Ballet22 provides supportive space for male, nonbinary dancers

The studio is small but the attitude is big on this warm Oakland afternoon as four dancers stride through Houston Thomas’ ballet “Bass am Wasser.” “Hips, hips, hips!” repetiteur Thomas Bieszka calls, urging a dancer to complete a step with slinkier style. Then, Bieszka reminds the whole ensemble: “This actually should come all the way down from pointe.” The dancers step high onto the tips of their shoes and roll down as Bieszka gently encourages. “I know it’s not easy. You’ve been going all day...
Fjord Review •

Sound Effect

Vengel and Ernesto Peart Falcón hold a bright light between them, and in their shiftings from one clinging posture to another, the energy breaks through their bodies in a vector of sudden illumination, like the cosmos itself bursting open. As a rumble intensifies and the bodies begin to stretch, the image is thrillingly ambiguous, simultaneously calling to mind a young couple awakening in bed and an egg membrane stretching with the first instinctual, mysterious stirrings of life.When the bodies...
Datebook | San Francisco Arts & Entertainment Guid •

Review: ‘10,000 Steps’ extends ODC’s possibilities in crafty, thrilling ways

For years now, ODC/Dance founder and Artistic Director Brenda Way has been testing out guest choreographers to shake up the 53-year-old San Francisco company’s aesthetic and to search for a successor. Among these visitors, Catherine Galasso has been the most unexpected. With the Thursday, July 18, premiere of Galasso’s “10,000 Steps: A Dance About Its Own Making,” she also proved to be the most delightful.Galasso has artistic roots in the Bay Area but now works in Brooklyn. Over the last decade,...
Fjord Review •

School's Out

What a thrill to start the program with tiny first-graders demonstrating their ports de bras and to end with the can-do professionals of tomorrow—48 of them!—whizzing through choreography as musical as it is breakneck. If the SFB School’s students have danced such a challenging assignment at some point over the past 91 years (the school was founded in 1933, alongside the company), I’m not aware of it. The audience seemed aglow with much more than parental pride. “That was just an evening of fabu...
Fjord Review •

Swan Lake, Encore

As for Jimison’s Odette/Odile on opening night, she stepped into a high-pressure moment heroically, and her interpretation has the potential to develop into something special. In her arabesque she almost has Fonteyn-like qualities of tranquility and softness, so harmonized are her long arms, elegant fingers, and regretful downcast gaze. But her arms in motion need to develop their own style for her Odette to be singular, and the emotional valence needs to vary beyond pained suffering. In other w...
Datebook | San Francisco Arts & Entertainment Guid •

Review: The dancing is angelic at Alonzo King Lines Ballet’s spring season

Alonzo King’s ballets seem to be everywhere as the North American dance world is having a belated awakening to his choreographic depths over the past decade. But it’s his own company, anchored right at San Francisco’s Seventh and Market streets, that remains the crucible for forming his dance and his dancers, which are inextricable in his art.This was powerfully clear again in the dancing of Adji Cissoko on Friday, April 5, when Alonzo King Lines Ballet opened its spring home season at the Blue...
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About Me

Freelance dance critic writing regularly for the San Francisco Chronicle and Fjord Review