San Francisco Ballet, War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, CA
Program 6: Night, L'Arlesienne, Symphony in Three Movements
April 3, 6, 8, 2001

One of the best pieces San Francisco Ballet has in its repertoire now is Julia Adam's Night, which opened last week's run of Program 6. In a program designed to show off the versatility and strength of the company, Night alone hinted at the untapped capabilities of these dancers.

That is not to say that the performances of this piece were perfect (although Tina LeBlanc can hardly put a foot wrong as the woman whose dreams we observe). Tuesday night's opening seemed less edgy and driven than last year's premiere during the company's Discovery Program series. Perhaps the orchestra's rendering of Matthew Pierce's score was a bit slower, so that the difference was less clear between the dreamy wandering and the intense partnering sequences. Then too, Lisa Pinkham's lighting appeared much dimmer than I had remembered, giving an overall impression of mono-chromaticity to dancer Benjamin Pierce's designs.

However, by Friday night, the cast had clearly settled into the choreography. The wistful trio of Benjamin Pierce, Gonzalo Garcia and Peter Brandenhoff, set to an oboe solo, was more clearly phrased and showed cleaner transitions from one step into the next. By Sunday, the entire group had found the edge once again and offered a solid performance with the deftness and seductiveness that had so impressed audiences last year.

On any of the nights, though, it was impossible to miss the visceral impact of this quirky style of movement, drawn as much from contact improvisation as from the classical ballet vocabulary. And as to the richness of the ensemble work, there was as much to watch in the sixth viewing of Night as there had been in the first. Adam has undoubtedly studied the work of other choreographers that she worked with and absorbed some of the best elements of their styles. One can pick out influences of the idiosyncratic musicality of Mark Morris, or the impetus-to-move, drawn from unexpected parts of the body, so typical of William Forsythe.

As one might imagine, her style looks more comfortable on some of the dancers than others, although all three casts navigated the choreography securely. What was surprising, however, was who stood out and through which steps. The partnering between Benjamin Pierce and Tina LeBlanc on Tuesday and Friday nights, was seamless and fluid, even though the two are arguably the smallest and the tallest dancers in the company. Nevertheless, whether the sequence demanded for a slow, extended phrase or a quick one, Pierce and LeBlanc matched each other beautifully. Among the men, Damian Smith and Gonzalo Garcia gave a sharp lateral edge to the lines of the complicated "Office Parks & Strip Malls" section, particularly in the pull back through the elbow and push forward with the heel of the hand. In the female trio, Leslie Young's slow articulation throughout the piece's final two sections lent the fullest impression of dynamic contrast with the fast-moving work going on in front of her.

In the end, though, the ballet belongs to Tina LeBlanc, on whom the role of the dreamer was created. She gave compelling performances on both of the nights that I saw, not just inhabiting the choreography, but making it all look like a natural extension of sleepwalking. In the focus of her eyes and head we are left with the impression of wandering, or sometimes trailing behind, sometimes yearning desperately. To her credit, Vanessa Zahorian, who took the same part on Sunday, quite frankly surprised me with the maturity of her performance. Her quality of contract and release lent a weight to the phrasing. Without the tension that sometimes attends her classical roles, she was clearly epitome of a "mover". Her work was never as explosive as LeBlanc, but the length of her line made her no less effective.

L'Arlesienne was the second piece of the program. After Night's exhilaration, any work would be hard put to impress, and L'Arlesienne is at its heart a much more internal work. Based upon a story by Alphonse Daudet, it is essentially a vehicle for the dramatic talents of the lead couple, Vivette and Frederi. Choreographer Roland Petit created this characteristically French work for the Ballet National de Marseilles in 1976, and it seems a curiously dated and dreich acquisition for the San Francisco Ballet.

Tuesday and Sunday saw the pairing of Lucia Lacarra and Pierre-François Vilanoba take the leads, while on Friday, Julie Diana and Vadim Solomakha portrayed the unhappy couple. All four gave fine, detailed performances with many good points, but none of them were able to disguise the underlying fact that at the core this was an overlong and not terribly interesting story. Are we thrilled to watch Lacarra's feet take tendu from first position or the charming Diana evince a small giggle at the neatness of her footwork? Of course. Do we love to watch Vilanoba take a huge double assemblé turn in the air, or Solomakha throw back his head and tear across the stage? Naturally. Could all of this framed in a shorter more sustainable amount of time? Yes.

Being too lengthy is, I believe, one of the pitfalls of choreographing to an already established piece of music. Petit has chosen to work with Bizet's orchestral suite, L'Arlesienne, and the work clearly has a music coherence that does not necessarily transfer to its ballet counterpart. The dance story might have been told in a ten-minute vignette, but as there was still music, so there is more dancing. Then too, the score vividly tells the tale, but in some ways is far too expository for dance. For example, in the martial section there is really little else to do but put the men in a group and have them march.

To their credit, the dancers do as much as they can with the roles. But given the constraints of classical ballet steps, it is hard for the young man to look insane rather than merely insensitive and oblivious. Similarly, the ballet never asks more of Vivette than that she be charming, yet wounded and that she do a few clean double pirouettes. Julie Diana gave her portrayal an air of sweet shyness that was girlish but never cute. Lacarra's Vivette was more gamine and spirited, making one wonder why she was sticking around for this loser. Vilanoba's sensibilities as a Frenchman portraying a French character rendered his Frederi somewhat abstracted, perhaps even cruel. As for Vadim Solomakha, he may have had the best time of all of them. This sort of dramatic role is perfectly suited to the Russian technique and temperament, as evidenced by Mikhail Baryshnikov's star turn in Petit's Le Jeune Homme et la Mort. It can be thrilling to watch him run en manege at breakneck speed... but how long can he keep that up for?

Symphony in Three Movements, set to the Stravinsky score of the same name, closed out the program. The musical score is a grand and complex one, thus the ballet is scaled to match it. This may account for it's closing the evening, despite my own sense that exuberant Night would have served that purpose better.

An example of the purely abstract ballet, Balanchine intentionally choreographed the work to be "visualized music" and eschewed context, which can be problematic for the dancers, who in all three performances seemed to be trying hard to convey something to the audience. The cuteness of the corps of sixteen women especially, was bothersome. There is a certain insouciance to Symphony in Three Movements, but any playfulness should come from the choreography, not the ponytails.

Then too, I miss the extreme movement originating from the hips. Much of the choreography was performed in a quite upright manner, without the sinuousness that so characterizes this type of Balanchinean work. Of the several casts, only Julie Diana, dancing in the pas de deux with Yuri Possokhov, had the mixture of cool sophistication with witty musical phrasing. Watching her fold demurely into Yuri Possokhov's arms, she was such an otherworldly creature that she reminded me of that choreographer's muse, Suzanne Farrell. Lucia Lacarra, who danced this same pas de deux with Possokhov on Friday bordered on being too precious, although her physicality once again, might have served the choreography well. The continuous promenades with grand ronds de jambe were thoroughly and quite appropriately sexy.

Among the other leads, Kristin Long and Christopher Stowell (who retires this year) were secure, though perhaps not so flashy as Vanessa Zahorian (who pulled consistent triple pirouettes to the delight of the audience) and Guennadi Nedviguine. Lorena Feijoo and Parrish Maynard, on whom this style looks perfect, were also strong leads of the first movement, but only Julia Adam, dancing with Roman Rykine, brought out the kind of intensity mixed with physical expressiveness that the mood of this opening section requires.

San Francisco Ballet's Program 7 will include Mark Morris's Pacific, set to the music of Lou Harrison, Magrittomania by Yuri Possokhov, and Balanchine's masterpiece, Symphony in C to the Bizet score of the same name. The performance on April 20, 2001 will also feature a tribute to Christopher Stowell, who retires this year. More information is available on their website: http://www.sfballet.org.

Return to the review index

This review initially appeared on Voiceofdance.com, April 12, 2001.

For questions or comments, please contact maryellenhunt@yahoo.com.