May Means Student Showcases. SFB, no Exception

This is a tremendously tardy report. For full disclosure,  I currently am on bed-pan duty with a friend of over a half century.  Hence, the spirit is both willing and frustrated in both directions.  God bless her and you who read my prose every so often.  That said, here goes.

Nothing can quite match May student show case performances. Students strive to be included, parents arrive to assess their offspring and dance lovers sit hoping to be impressed. I can say with confidence that San Francisco Ballet Students’ 2023 had a goodly share of roaring successes with a student roster I counted as 173. Over the last dozen years, retiring School Director Patrick Armand has built an excellent roster of teachers, bringing Karen Gabay from the late lamented Ballet San Jose, plus Larissa Ponomarenko and Victor Plotnikov from Boston Ballet and the teaching circles of Massachusetts, to provide their heritage and expertise in the Vaganova and other Russian traditions.

Frankly speaking, for a number of years the school and company has met its share of diversity in the realm of Asian aspirants. Leslie Young, who became a soloist and now mounts Lew Christensen’s witty choreographies, was one of the early examples of talent beyond Caucasian ancestry.  Then Dance in the Schools with the incredible Ruth Bossieux and Crystal Mann opened opportunity for public school children to be exposed to the rigorous demands of classical ballet. 

And from that exposure came definite results. I remember fondly Chidozie Nyserem, now shining and teaching in Germany, and Ikolo Griffin, whose post SF Ballet corps career included Dance Theatre of Harlem, the Joffrey Ballet, his own speciality called “Just Turns” until he became part of the faculty at Pacific Northwest Ballet’s school, in addition to the Adonis-like figure of Duncan Cooper,

now providing special workshops. This year’s contribution Jacey Gailliard, a trainee. If she was the one in the school technical registration presiding over her technique like a Maria Therese, ballet lovers have lots to regard with real excitement.

After Intermission and thanks to Larissa Ponomorenko, Frescoes comprised a staging of Arthur Saint Leon and Marius Petipa to Cesar Pugni music, a trifle designed to showcase the charms and technical brilliance of four young damselsin mid-late 19th century St. Petersburg. It was followed by Dana Genshaft’s Stereo is King, a century and world away in taste to Mason Betes’ music, danced with earnest intensity by eight young dancers. YBCA’ as a venue allows an audience to catch that fervor. And just before the second intermission, the finale of Lew Christensen’s Beauty and the Beast displayed the roster of senior students. Staged by Betsy Erickson and Jeffrey Lyons, it makes one hope more of Lew’s creativity will surface in coming seasons.

Following the second intermission Myles Thatcher’s latest creation, After Light to a score by Lyan V. Lott, received its premiere, making striking and prolonged use of the dancers’ hands in murky stage lighting, thirty-four pairs of them. Various groupings, one might expect amongst adolescents, joining, not joining, included and not included. One of the most interesting Thatcher essays to date, I would like to see it again whether on student or professional.

I also want to mention a student who is gifted not only technically and with an ability to pour herself into an assignment with liquid as well as dramatic ease. Her name is Nancy Galliard and she is a distinct pleasure to behold. I would like to predict a future principal dancer.

Jack Anderson, 1936-2023

The New York Times for October 22 or 23 carried the news of Jack’s death in a New York City Hospital. With a picture of Jack in a study-like setting, the obituary was remarkably fair and detailed, if failing to acknowledge Jack’s most notable dance history, The One and Only Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. A work relating to the American Dance festival, published by Duke University Press was mentioned, along with unnamed works of poetry.

I believe I was one of Jack’s earlliest colleagues in dance journalism, although his presence in the san Francisco Bay Area pre-dated my sojourn with Dance News in 1962.  But I remember seeing him at concerts and chatting with him.  At the time he was writing dance reviews for The Oakland Tribune, remarkable for its willingness to engage someone with that deliberate a focus.  At the time virtually all critics on San Francisco Bay Area newspapers were musical in concentration, dance thrown in for good measure. If my memory serves, he either replaced or augmented Clifford Gessler, who came on the staff after years in Hawaii.

What I remember at the time was Jack’s conscientious capacities for civil liberties and justice. He asked The Tribune for leave to participate in a strike, and he was fired. The Tribune’s publishing family was devotedly Republican and I can remember the publisher of the time being called “China Boy” for his love of the Chiang-Kai-shek regime. The tenor of the paper changed when I wrote my once a month series of interviews on East Bay situated dance related figures, 1964-1966.

Danny Boy 1943-2023

Both a lapsed subscription and so-so web connections to the dance world outside the United States, I stumbled upon news of Danny Grossman’s death when I told Carolyn Carvajal that her younger daughter, Lena Hall, should connect with Danny when appearing in Toronto this coming October. Both individuals native San Franciscans, both achieved their dancing and theatrical prominence a continent away from our foggy shores. Yet both enjoyed encouragement and support here in their formative years, Danny’s was more startling in pre high school of the arts, formally named to honor Ruth Asawa’s effective advocacy.

Handsome eulogies for Danny can be found on the web, Canadian writers paying tribute to the San Franciscan turned Canadian citizen, among them Michael Crabbe in Dance International and Brad Heller for The Toronto Globe and Mail, among others. I found both touching, just and gratifying, especially because in our brief encounters, I felt I had found a friend.

I knew Danny studied with Gloria Unti and was a classmate of Margaret Jenkins.  Their connection was further strengthened because Margie shared longshoreman ties with Danny’s father, Aubrey, who was an attorney deeply involved in, Native American struggles [Alcatraz’ occupation being the most prominent].  Earlier, labor unions and civil rights was an emphasis. Aubrey was the lawyer for Harry Bridges, the Australian-born, West Coast Longshoremans organizer. Aubrey kept the U.S. Government from deporting Bridges for his labor activities.

There are some lovely references for Aubrey to be found on the Web. Native to San Bernardino, and unusual for someone at the time, as a young man of Eastern European Jewish parentage, he played football. That fact Hazel, Irish and Catholic and his future wife, to consider him, like all football players, stupid.

 Audrey with Hazel, his wife, were ardent progressives In a conversation with Danny when he was here when his father was moved to the Jewish Home for the Elderly, Danny mentioned that at he family went underground in New York for a period, clearly at the height of the McCarthy Senate investigations. 

Among Aubrey’s other remarkable achievements was securing licensing procedures for Chinese herbalists.  A book of Chinese printing reproductions was an additional result, evidence of appreciation which Hazel proudly produced.

Danny remarked when he was at Connecticut College he knew he had to impress Paul Taylor , resulting in the decade-long association with Taylor’s company.  Performing as Danny Williams, he was one of the original dancers in the iconic work, “Three Epitaphs,” its loping, floppy style well suited to Danny’s energetic movements. Danny also expressed some misgivings at using his mother’s name rather than his father’s, which he corrected when moving to Toronto where he was to spend the bulk of his career as dancer and choreography.

It must have been when Danny returned after his mother’s death hat he brought with him two or three tapes he shared with me in the family home that hung over the Glen Park Canyon in one of the S.F. Redevelopment that transformed that inner section of other city in the late 50’s.  One was Bella, charming and improbable.  The other was of Danny appearing in drag at a Gala fund-raiser for the National Ballet of Canada. He chuckled as he played it for me, and, given the times, it was quite a sensation, dressed in sa street length, raspberry hued dress with long sleeves and plunging neckline with glittering dripping earrings and medium-heeled pumps.  Grinning with his moon-shaped smile, one could hear the audience both gasping and approving.

Danny and his partner had purchased property in St. Kitts and planned to retire there.  I don’t know if anything developed of this, for he also was aware that the subsidy he had enjoyed from the Canadian Arts Council was due to stop, and he concentrated on recording his works and making arrangements for licensing and staging.

In one discussion about the father-son relationship, Danny mentioned how difficult it was for Aubrey to express emotion, but, Danny also knew his father was proud of him. “When my company came to San Francisco and we danced at ODC’s Performance Gallery, Aubrey called in all the cards of his Longshoreman’s connections to make sure that Danny and his Company performed to a full house.”.