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San Francisco Chronicle •

SFDanceworks’ program of vulnerability is the hot dance ticket of the summer

Over eight seasons, the annual pick-up project devoted to contemporary dance with international avant-garde cred has become not just summer’s hot ticket, but one of the must-see dates of the annual dance calendar. Yes, the triple-bill that opened at Z Space on Thursday, July 10, and continues through Saturday, July 12, is just one hour and 15 minutes long — and yes, I would gladly watch another hour of whatever artistic director Dana Genshaft, with her taste for movement as explosive as it is to...
Fjord Review •

Keeping the Faith

The subject is toxic religion, immediately apparent both in those Catholic school girl uniforms (though Maleta Bukstaff renders them in shades of orange) and in the way an ensemble of 11 dancers frenetically mouths the lyrics of devotions, then doubles over with hands in prayer. A lighting scheme by Julie Ballard of an overhead grid, left exposed and inoperative by the ballet’s end, combines with a sound design by Darryl J. Hoffman of terrifying crumbling audio effects that crash in at irregular...
Fjord Review •

New School

An even greater luxury at these shows, though, was the presence of the full San Francisco Ballet orchestra in the pit. Both of these changes are thanks to Grace Holmes, the School’s new-ish director, and both changes made for student dancing that felt bigger, bolder, and more unleashed than in years past. Even in the opening demonstrations with their exam-style recitations of increasingly tricky steps, the Level 6-8 students were uninhibited and used the language of classicism with a sense of pe...
Datebook | San Francisco Arts & Entertainment Guid •

Peace and strife co-exist in Lines Ballet collaboration with Grammy-nominated trumpeter

In the middle of Alonzo King’s new ballet “The Beauty of Dissolving Portraits” there’s a moment that feels like a gift made for anyone who won’t give up on love and interconnection as the current governmental regime tries to tear our society apart.Theo Duff Grant, dancing a consuming solo, is a torrent of pale musculature clothed in flowing green silk, his head touching the floor when it seems he can’t go on. Suddenly two more men arrive like angels to help him, their velvet skirts flaring into...
Datebook | San Francisco Arts & Entertainment Guid •

In dark times, Margaret Jenkins’ absorbing dance ‘Wheel’ brings us back to the light

Some old lines from the playwright Bertolt Brecht that have been making the rounds lately, for good reason as we pass through this alarming period of mounting authoritarianism: “In the dark times / Will there also be singing?” In their echo, Margaret Jenkins’ absorbing new dance “Wheel” adds pressing new questions: “Will it end? If so, when? Will we resist? What world is this?”Those words come from the poet Michael Palmer, who has worked with Jenkins since she founded the Margaret Jenkins Dance...
Fjord Review •

Box Office Ballet

When it comes to sex, the challenge to shyer sensibilities is not subtle: “Grosse Fuge” is a ritualized copulation for four men and four women, to Beethoven’s Great Fugue. What’s refreshing to this American eye, though, is how it brings us a healthier Dutch attitude towards sexuality. The women stand in the back for the first section of “Grosse Fuge,” dressed in white leotards that look a bit like lingerie; as the music delivers strident phrases driven by the double-bass, the men make fists and...
Fjord Review •

The Right Way

The night began with an excerpt from a work-in-progress, “After the Deluge.” The music was gentle, minimalist-leaning selections from Nils Frahm, Max Richter, and Bach as reinterpreted by pianist Chad Lawson; the costumes, by Kyo Yohena, were pastel pajamas. What emerged most powerfully from the ensemble passages was the repeated image of a dancer holding his or her partner upside down. Jenna Marie and Colton Wall had an especially charged duet, her hand tracing down his body, the crook of her k...
San Francisco Chronicle •

Review: ODC/Dance’s bold 55th season opens with political resistance, artistic audacity

ODC/Dance founder Brenda Way has never been timid about talking politics, but it was a relief all the same to see her take the stage for the company’s 55th annual home season and announce, “Given what the current administration is doing to the country, this calls for a different kind of current speech.” It was a balm to hear Way speak of art as “the tent under which all can resist.”

ODC/Dance founder Brenda Way has never been timid about talking politics, but it was a relief all the same to see...
Datebook | San Francisco Arts & Entertainment Guid •

Review: Alvin Ailey dancers return to Berkeley stage with cryptic premiere, indestructible spirit

Awakening to true joy is a serious business. That thought stayed in mind while watching Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater groove and glide through Ronald K. Brown’s “Grace” as the opener of the internationally beloved company’s 55th visit to UC Berkeley’s Cal Performances.For audience members who come year after year and decade after decade, the Ailey dancers’ annual weeklong spring residency isn’t just entertainment. It’s a religious rite, a practice of communing with bodies channeling a trans...
San Francisco Chronicle •

San Francisco Ballet’s tribute to Hans van Manen will change how you see dance

Those who think they only like blockbuster dance productions built around familiar storylines might find themselves converted by a riveting program that offers no narrative and no literal pyrotechnics — but plenty of drama and musicality, and the fireworks of pure dancing power.

Those who think they only like blockbuster dance productions built around familiar storylines might find themselves converted by a riveting program that offers no narrative and no literal pyrotechnics — but plenty of dr...
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...
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About Me

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