An Incomparable Marin County Evening

For the second year, this time with Brooke Byrne, co-owner of Geary Dance Center, San Francisco, the trek was made to Tarra Firma Farms to see Julia Adam’s new and major work, Regenerare. Two weekends in July, Julia has presented performances cum repast on the farm where she and her husband Aaron Lucich raise animals sustainably. This rural setting is an outgrowth of summer events which commenced at Inverness and moved to Woodland, before anchoring in this location, revivified after the Covid hiatus. It is an evening experience of quiet, but masterful living art.

By July, the Marin County farm territory is straw color; when you walk on the flaxen hue the combination of clods and vegetation remind you of the fullness of agricultural season. The land undulates up and down, so that a tractor drawing a flatbed cushioned with bales of hay is required for those enjoying the repast on plank tables with the later performance on bleachers below the eating area.

Behind the tables a permanent shed is the site of the dinner preparation, the hive of activity with accessory supplies of equipment, fuel and a chromium loo accommodating two and a cadre of youthful assistants pour wine and coffee, serving the audience at least ten platters of offerings, many featuring unusual renderings of summer vegetables in addition to the sustainably raised beef.

As the sky darkens into deep azure, the evening star appears in the west and the surrounding hills with their adorning oak trees scattered artfully, the audience treks down the hill, assisted by ready blankets to see Julia’s summer offering Regenerare, featuring seven young artists dressed in simple white leotards, tights and modest skirts, save for one, garbed in loose black shirt and trousers.

Six dancers commence with a portable barre to sparkling sounds and whether using the barre or moving away from it, crisp classicism catches your spirit. Then there is a small white carrying case making its appearance by one of the feminine dancers who carries it to down stage right and opens it, a signal for the change in musical choice and the dancer’s movements, changing from formalism to casual connections.

Then from the left side of the audience bleachers, the dancer in black walks toward the platform and at the back climbs on to its surface. What follows is, of course, is the usual curiosity and appraisal by a group of a stranger, accented by costume color.

A variety of interactions follow and range from all male semi-competition and semi-bonding to an approach to the women to current melodies and involving lifts, turns and spatial covering. A notable touch was the initial appearance of a small, square white case brought on stage at the start, which the stranger opens and withdraws a small, slender vertical object which the black clad dancer presents to the other dancers, fostering examination and acceptance.

At the close of the work the black clad dancer quietly leaves the platform as do the other dancers, leaving the young woman who brought the white case to come forward, kneel before it as if to open and inspect its mysteries as the lights are extinguished.

The seven dancers, including Zoe Lucich, Julia and Aaron’s daughter, included Oliver Wolkowich, Skylar Campbell, Jackie Oakley. Matteo Ferra, Iris Rocio Davila, Fernando Martin Guillans, their affiliations with Houston Ballet, Cleveland Ballet, Ballet West, Ballet Met and current fee lancing.

It is difficult to describe the quality of the work, but it is sufficiently magic to make me want to see it on another set of young dancers locally and elsewhere.