A March Bon-Bon: San Francisco Ballet Dances Coppelia

March 8 San Francisco reintroduced its Pacific Northwest Ballet co-production of Coppelia, the George Balanchine-Alexandra Danilova ballet premiered at New York City Ballet in 1974. Staged by Judith Fugate, Before going into detail about designer, the Leo Delibes’ music and etc., let me say that it was memory lane. That effervescent path has been trod by anyone remembering The Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and Danilova in Swanhilda’s shoes and Frederick Franklin as the roving-eyed Franz Some San Franciscans will remember Ruby Asquith in the Willam Christensen production. In addition, a small cadre of dancers danced in the Ballet Celeste production mounted by Merriem Lanova who had danced in the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo version and passed it along to her young charges, touring it through the United States and Hawaii. Carolyn Carvajal was one such veteran, remembering what remained and what was new, courtesy of Mr. B.

Roberta Guidi de Bagno has given the production pastel prettiness without being goopy or stretching costumes beyond a logical take on Galacia’s folk qualities without becoming too specific. No sequins, feathers and the like. Coppelius’ attic studio is cavernous, Randall G. Chiarelli giving it just the right slightly gloomy light, neither daylight or well illumined, just as Acts I and III are suitably sunny.

Cheryl  Osseola’s extensive program notes provided the audience with Coppelia’s background, E.T.A. Hoffman, the 1870 production created by Arthur Saint-Leon, Franz’ role en traverstie, ultimately Enrico Cecchetti’s revival with Franz becoming danced by a male. The lifts between Franz and Swanhilda are definitely twentieth century additions.

Carolyn remarked that the mime and plot remained untouched. The ensemble dances were different; I remember Robert Lindgren and Sonya Tyyven leading the czardas in the final act, the ensemble dances being broken up into the first and third acts and Yvonne Chouteau in Act III’s Prayer solo. Balanchine has combined them.

Tuesday saw Frances Chung as Swanhilda, Vitor Luiz as her Franz and the superb debut of Pascal Molat as Coppelius. If the program notes mention Chung’s strangeness with mime, she has moved far beyond it to a sparkling, clear ability to convey traditional query and delivery. She is one of the company’s sparkling allegro dancers; there was an almost Fonteyn-like propriety in her delivery, yet still very much Chung. Small wonder she holds an Izzie award for individual performance.

Luiz makes a believable Franz, unforced classicism, unmannered presentation and partnering impeccable. Molat’s elderly doll maker hobbles across the town square with acute accuracy of age and arthritis. His attic scene with Swanhilda’s impersonation of Coppelia was masterly; delusion and elderly excitement.

For those unfamiliar with the plot, it concerns Swanhilda, a spirited young village girl, and her boy friend Franz who also has his eye on Coppelia, a beautiful creature who is wheeled onto a balcony by her maker, Dr. Coppelius. This makes Swanhilda and Franz quarrel. In a twilight excursion, Coppelius is roughed up by Franz and friends, losing his key. Swanhilda and her friends find the key and venture into the Coppelius’ workshop at Act I’s curtain. In Act II, the girls discover the toys and the inanimate Coppelia. Coppelius returns, chasing the girls out; Swanhilda remains assuming Coppelia’s clothing. Franz, meanwhile, attempts to reach the doll via the aid of a ladder; intercepted by Coppelius, he is drugged by wine. Coppelius attempts to bring Coppelia to life using Franz’ life force, pouring over a huge book of spells. Swanhilda plays along with Coppelius, becoming more life like, only to destroy his fantasy and to flee with Franz.

Frances Chung and Pascal Molat in Balanchine’s CoppÈlia. (© Erik Tomasson)

Act III sees the dedication of the bells, announced in French language banners in Act I. Many wedding couples. Coppelius is seen, heart-broken, with his doll in his arms; Swanhilda and Franz also get married, and several celebratory dances ensue. In this production, a bevy of young students perform a charming dance, impossible for the old touring production. The Ballet Russe production provided recompense to Coppelius; here he is pushed aside all too rapidly.

The Act III divertissements featured Sasha de Sola as Dawn in a costume with golden tracery; Sofiane Sylve’s Prayer was cloaked in blue chiffon with touches of grey; four Jesterettes and finally Discord and War led by Jennifer Stahl and Hansuke Yamamoto, laden with spears, Greek-style plumed helmets and garments of black and silver metallic touches, perpetually leaping with one leg raised to waist height, moving in circles and linear patterns. The dominant note in this finale was twenty-three students in pink tutus, led by Lauren Strongin, in the Waltz of the Golden Hours, the same number commencing the January 2016 Gala. To me it took away from the earlier variations danced by de Sola and Sylve, rendering them more divertissements than sweet, evocative variations.

The Waltz is an inducement to students, and, probably, parents. Balanchine and Danilova undoubtedly had memories of similar use of students in the Imperial Ballet Academy in St. Petersburg. Used to the pared-down version, I found the yards of pink tutu a bit distracting to this French-born bon-bon. Like La Fille Mal Gardee, created in 1789 in Bordeaux by Jean Dauberval and the 1837 premiere of Giselle of Jules Perrot and Juan Corelli, these three durable ballets share French ancestry, however much layers and modifications may have ensued. Vive La France!

Rebel On Pointe

Wilson, Lee, Rebel on Pointe
Gainesville FL, University Press of Florida, 2014
ISBN:978-0-8130-6008-8, 215 pages, illus., $24,95

Lee Wilson spent her childhood in Delaware, getting involved in dance classes, starting at age four. Lee’s pediatrician advised her mom that dance classes could correct Lee’s pigeon-toed condition. Nothing was mentioned about the difference in the length of inner and outer thigh muscles. A year later it was ballet; tap had not corrected the toed-in position. She describes vividly the process of learning to toe out, the small school recital, she and her brother Trick tap-dancing, and its enlistment of mothers as seamstresses.

Before she starts to talk about acquiring Capezio’s Duro-Toe shoes her second year, she recaps the background of her father, a chemist with Du Pont, and the housewife routine of her mother. Late in her life, her mother told Lee what her pre-marriage, World War II life had been; in U,S. Army Intelligence she was a code breaker, gifted with facility in three languages plus Latin and Greek. Clearly, that skill was funneled into home schooling and assiduous support of dancing classes.

Lee outgrew, literally, her classes in Wilmington, Delaware and started a commute to Washington, D.C., where she studied until the teacher told her she had outgrown the school and pointed her to Saturday classes in Philadelphia with Maria Swoboda. Here Lee encountered a fixed barre, but a revelation in center work. She learned efface and ecarte positions, moving  behind one set of dancers and in front of another. Her description gave me the feeling of being in the class, enhanced by my own brief experience with Mme. Swoboda in New York City in 1951. She started commuting when the  Philadelphia train trip from Wilmington cost sixty-five cents.

Lee writes clearly about the social mores of the time, the norm of women being homemakers and her determination to be able to rely on herself, not being caught in the repetitive and non-creative chores of wifehood. Julia Child was yet to come upon the scene as well as Martha Stewart.

She writes about the understandable argument about earning a living [Dad] and weight [Mother], plus her growing awareness of the dance world, thanks in part by the purchase of a television set by her father.

At the Philadelphia Dance Academy, Lee encountered Alfredo Corvino and James Jamieson, for whom she executed 16 fouetees right and left. Fortuitously, he opened a school in Wilmington, Delaware and placed Lee in his advanced classes. His criticism of her in his first Wilmington class and her realization the work she needed to do convinced her mother she had the grit to become a professional.

Urged on by Jamieson, at thirteen she competed in Highland dancing, eventually winning bronze, silver and gold medals in various competitions.

Lee’s mother saw to it that she attended a private school so her dance training was not interrupted; Lee took classes with the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo and was considered company material. Her mother pushed her into college entrance exams so she would leave home.

Lee auditioned for Juilliard, aced the dance audition, got a so-so for the piano and was told she was too young to live alone in New York City. Her mother enrolled her in the Professional Children’s School and Lee found herself taking classes with Valentina Pereyaslavec Her description of the floor, the room, the procedures evoke one’s knowledge of what it means to be in a class and trying to establish one’s capabilities. She writes simply and wonderfully about the ambiance, the expectations, and the New York City of 1961, complete with the Automat, even with her academic courses.

She touches on working in commercial shows as well as the nomadic life of dancers, particularly those who have moved from ballet to musical theater. She talks about physical size, what it means in partnering, and how the constant use of toe shoes is the only way to harden one’s foot for that precarious, easily outworn footwear. Her comments includes mention of professional unions, their dues and pensions, although the dollar sign is omitted.

Lee devotes space to joining Mme Persyaslavec’s Professional Class and who she shared class with, with an interesting description of Margot Fonteyn and her method of working to maintain her technique at 40. She also discusses seeing Lucia Chase and the process by which hiring choices are frequently made.

In 1962, however, Lee’s father was posted to Du Pont’s Geneva office for a three year term, and Lee had to decide whether to remain in New York or accompany her family, sailing on the S.S. United States. Lee’s assessment of the dance company situation the year the Ford Foundation made major training grants and New York City Ballet was poised to move to Lincoln Center is excellent.

The next section of the book is devoted to Lee’s relationship to Rosella Hightower, how Hightower encouraged her, and guided her into job openings.

Lee recounts her penury while her family lived in Geneva and her mother reveled in being in Europe, able to travel, freed from the domestic routine back in the United States. It also includes meeting Erik Bruhn and the relationship of Bruhn and Nureyev. It finishes with Lee’s two years as a principal dancer at the Opera in Bordeaux where she met Carlos Carvajal and danced in a pas de deux he created and danced with her.

When she returns to the United States, the Joffrey Ballet had temporarily disbanded; through class with Anthony Tudor she learned that Dame Alicia Markova was taking over the Metropolitan Opera Ballet. Lee joined the company in the fall. She writes of her first experiences auditioning for Broadway musicals, getting to be replacement in Hello Dolly and knowing musical theatre was where she belonged.

Lee’s memoir is well-written, excellent in its information, memorable in its capacity to engage you in her career and her perceptions. I highly recommend it.

 

 

2014 USAIBC Round III Session III, June 26, 2014

This final session opened with Aaron Bell who had been featured prominently in the ballet documentary “First Position.” He chose two divergent classical variations, the flashy one last,the men’s variation from Sleeping </em>Beauty as a beginning and the Slave’s variation from Le Corsaire as his second. At present, his attack is more suited to the Prince Desire role, clean, correct, somewhat self-effacing. A thoughtful, intelligent dancer, his excellence also conveyed a neutral quality. This also was conveyed in Vista, Steve Rooks’ setting to Steve Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians.” A long time observer remarked she thought Bell needed to attend classes with other students. I have no way of knowing if that situation pertained, but the observer was thoughtful and caring.

He was followed by Jinsol Eum dancing the same variation, slender, equally correct with touches of distinct elegance, an impression cemented with Solor’s variation from La Bayadere’s Kingdom of the Shades.

Partnered by Michal Slawomir Wosniak, Gisele Bethea essayed Sleeping Beauty’s Act III pas de deux with amazing felicity. I had no trouble believing she was a princess on the occasion of something momentous. Her port de bras and gestures over her low petite battements looked like the results of a coaching session with Margot Fonteyn, their progressive rise winning me over.

Romina Contreras with Sebastian Vinet selected Victor Gsovsky’s Grand Pas de Deux,,looking authoritative in the opening. Unfortunately, Contreras lost balance visibly initially in her variation, though she finished with aplomb. Her general demeanor led one veteran competition observer to comment, “Not this time, but in five years she’ll be a ballerina.” Vinet, a former member of San Francisco Ballet, cuts a handsome figure, but something happens in his torso distorting line and phrasing, though partnering Contreras with skill and empathy.

Seniors Jeong Hansol and Kota Fujishima danced as if they had telegraphed across the Straits of Korea; both danced the male variation from the Nutcracker’s grand pas de deux and Acteon’s variation from Esmeralda’s Diana and Acteon pas de deux by Agrippina Vaganova.

Three senior pas de deux followed with one non-competing partner. Byul Yun with non-competing partner Heewon Cho elected the Diana and Acteon pas de deux as did as did Tamako Miyszaki with non-competing partner Ariel Breitman. In between Melissa Gelfin elected Le Corsaire with non-competing partner Telmo Moreira. Clearly, fireworks were preferred for the senior pas de deux.

The contemporary third of Session III possessed a share of surprises. Jinsol Eum danced Juhyun Jo’s take on Pink Martini’s “But Now I’m Back”; black shirt, trousers and jacket topped by a black Fedora adjusted from time to time for emphasis, while Eum’s lean, flexible body angled, lunged and jumped with considerable panache.

Gisele Bethea’s selection, Imagine, left me with a vague impression of excellent execution, but exactly what was being evoked?

Two unusual choices of classical music for a competition were reflected by Romina Contreras and Sebastian Vinet who danced to Jaime Pinto’s essay to a Claude Debussy Sonate 1. The second was non-competing partner Telmo Moreira’s use of Frederick Chopin’s Lady of the Camellias Black pas de deux for finalist Melissa Gelfin, the former was as quiet and lyrical as Moreira’s setting was turbulent.

In between Jeong Hansol’s interpretation of Jong Ni Lee’s Napoli March of Thomas Beckman was titled Forgot Something. Terribly obvious, what was missing were Hansol’s trousers with the music providing the background for maneuvering and exposing the social and visual embarrassment for the spectacled forgetful male, accented by bright red shorts. The audience responded with chuckles, laughter, guffaws and much applause.

Ending the competition, Tamako Miyazaki with Ariel Breitman performed Tamas Krizsa’s Last Days to Max Richter’s music of the same name, an apocalyptic interpretation to music sounding much the same, enhanced by the lighting plot. One could only surmise that such feelings might be felt momentarily at the press conference the following morning.

Cinderella: Her Second Season with SFB, March 13

For foodies who also like ballet, the buffet in San Francisco’s Opera House is recommended once you pick up your tickets if not mailed to you. The hot dishes can be impressive, if simple, the roast beef succulent. It is the array of salads and vegetables where the buffet seems to excel; celery root julienned; farro with raisins and carrots; asparagus spears, spinach with citrus fruit. The prospect of second helpings and a complimentary glass of champagne is further inducement.

This year I elected the Thursday night program partly because Norman Hersch could only go that night and I wanted to see Frances Chung switch roles from an ugly sibling to the chosen one, Cinderella herself. She is such an admirable dancer; correct, musical, willing, and also reticent though gracious, altogether a formidable combination. Truly a company dancer, her attitude reminds me a bit of Margot Fonteyn, minus any brouhaha. What’s not to admire?

Davit Karapetyan was Chung’s Prince Charming with Diego Cruz making his debut as Benjamin, the Prince’s friend. Shannon Rugani rendered a powerful portrait of Stepmother Hortensia, understated but definite. Elizabeth Powell and Ellen Rose Hummel horsed it up as the two step sisters, Hummel’s Clementine winning Cruz’ Benjamin. Reuben Martin Cintas created a believable father, bereft, then remarried, pecked and coat holder, but ultimately defender of his blood child. In the royal household, Ricardo Bustamonte and Anita Paciotti were suitably anxious about princely behavior and marital choices, while Val Caniparoli’s Alfred worried a tad about Benjamin’s mischief and as Madame Mansard, Katita Waldo was completely flumoxed by her two young charges. Interesting note: Pascale Le Roy created the Mansard role last May, shortly before she was dismissed from San Francisco Ballet School’s staff, a post filled easily a decade or more.

Missing is the fairy god-mother. At the fireplace she is replaced by the Prince in disguise who is given food by Cinderella, a neat insert for cause and effect. Quickly the four Fates- Gaetano Amico, Daniel Deivison-Oliveira, Luke Willis and Shane Wuerthner intervene; providing wheels for Cinderella’s carriage to the ball, following the seasons’ coaching session in personal qualities. The seasons and their entourages didn’t seem to convey qualities to me, though the dancing was excellent. Jaime Garcia Castilla’s fluid a la seconde developpes were breathtaking as Summer while the Autumnal carrot wig [Halloween?]on Hansuke Yamamoto’s warred visually with his usual allegro fleetness.

One can scarcely fault Julian Crouch’s scenery and costumes except for the questionable taste in costuming the princesses from Spain, Russia and Bali; Goya doublet and hose, Orthodox robes and heavily veiled saris make me cringe over the mental processes which decided the selection and its visualization. His visual reference to the tree emerging from the mother’s tombstone with its weighted reference to the earth and regeneration is apt and touching, regardless of the more traditional story. As a beginning and finale it serves its purpose tidily.

Without doubt it’s a stunning production, from the tree emerging from the mother’s tomb, to the suggestion of regal status by the use of rust-hued pillars and a fussy sofa. Cinderella’s ballgown shimmers with its vertical wheat-like strands matches the billowing scarf-like train as she rides on the wheels of her gallant fates.

I enjoy stage business when it provokes a smile and is appropriate to the action. The global trek changed: three princesses come to conquer in a broadened riff of Swan Lake. Mother Hortensia’s inebriation rated a chuckle or two, and the nastier of the two sisters made appeared in a garmentless hoop with an overnight suitor quickly departing with drooping suspenders. (How could he have reached her?) The candidates to fit the slipper paraded and departed on a row of chairs, any remaining hastened by a functionary in glinting medieval armor; the chairs gradually lurched their way upwards before the final shoe fitting.

Clearly those excellent dancing Fates were employed to emphasize the magical crucial moments; however, the story’s message is strong enough to dispense with their services. When Cinderella retrieves her slipper from the sequestered fireplace niche, she is lifted. Granted, the lodging was high enough to require some assistance; but did it need to be that high in the first place? The interplay between Chung and Karapetyan was sufficiently strong to convey special recognition, a felicity that grew between them throughout the performance.

Would I want to see it again? Sure. I would hope for an unexpected encounter with Elaine Connell, former Asian Art Museum Commissioner and one time seventh grade school teacher in San Francisco who said her class nick-named her Blanca Brujo. Her friend Nancy Zacker regaled us with references to her relatives living in pre Gold Rush Sutter’s Fort. At intermission I was introduced to Don Blateman and his wife Emerald. Blateman was responsible for the inspiring documentary on the three Berkeley housewives/mothers who pioneered saving San Francisco Bay. It was a few hours of evenly balanced fantasy, memoir and social vision.

Two Styles for Giselle, January 29, February 1

Balletomanes must have heard about brother-sister Borzoi incident January 28 when the periodic breeding urge interrupted the hunting scene in Act I of San Francisco Ballet’s production of Giselle. It’s certainly gone the rounds of Facebook,Twitter with numerous reactions.

Wednesday night Matilde Froustey and Tiit Helimets repeated an initial Sunday matinee impression with Simone Messmer as Myrthe, Pascal Molat in the role of Hilarion. At the February 2 matinee Frances Chung danced Myrthe, Molat again Hilarion, with Sarah Van Patten and Luke Ingham as Giselle and Albrecht. Anita Paciotti was Berthe for both Giselles, her mime clear, her portrayal always apt.

The formations in both performances seemed exceptional. I noticed the use of opposition in the corps’ pas de basques as principals Froustey and Helimets danced Act I. Tomasson has provided vigorous lifting for the men with emphatic boot slapping, lending more emphasis on village activity than simply background for Giselle and her romantic betrayal. What’s difficult to believe, however, are hardy peasants when the corps clearly is young, slender and in tip-top condition, though a smattering of supernumeraries soften that distinction and two children scamper in the opening.

The Froustey-Helimets-Messmer casting evoked nineteenth century Romantic era, the ballerina’s fragility, the nobility, little disguised, of Albrecht. The argument of Hilarion in pressing his case, an absolutely minted portrait by Molat, is very French, quite possibly the most peasant of all and thoroughly satisfying. Froustey’s Giselle is fragility personified, a piece of Limoges or Haviland porcelain, finely formed, delicately decorative. She simply has no defense. Her Act II Giselle was exceptionally light, stylistically pure, those Romantic prints come to life, clearly stating its Parisian origins. Messmer’s Myrthe was also a clearly etched, classically-correct performance.

With Sarah Van Patten, Mark Ingham and Frances Chung as the principals on February 2, it was a trans-Atlantic shift, dramatic,valid, the physical proportions from two different continents, North America and Australia, more earthenware, perhaps the finest Deruta. It was easy to imagine Ingham in tennis togs with scarf in a convertible, but here a vigorous count, a drop-out from courtly protocol. Van Patten may well have been a young typhoid survivor, shorn early of her father; her survival makes Berthe doubly protective; her imagination stirred by the young stranger renting the hut across the village square, his coming and going a source of curiosity.

San Francisco Ballet sponsored a series of Giselle-related discussions. Though not attending these sessions, I remarked to my January 31 neighbors Messrs. Nees and Dodson that with first love shattered in a sheltered existence, the humiliation sustained in a closely knit community with the prospect of living around such witnesses, her heart’s dreams destroyed and perhaps ultimately marrying Hilarion, could well be overwhelming.

Van Patten’s mad scene was exceptional, her blue eyes staring vacantly, as if nothing had happened, but oh, yes it had, trying to piece the scenario together, jumbled up, in disorder. Ingham’s Albrecht was fully devastated by the discovery of his duplicity.

Mikael Melbye’s setting for Act II is impressive, its opening scrim of tree trunks with tangled, pointed branches with simulated ground fog behind and a flitting aerial wili setting the tone for Albrecht’s struggle with the Myrthe and her minions. First the scrim recedes, then gradually the tree-shaped flies recede to reveal Giselle’s grave site. It conveys a deepening not only of the stage but also the depth of the forest, along with the upper left entry point for Albrecht and the upper right watery destination for Hilarion.

Chung dances an apt Myrthe, and is particularly vigorous when dispatching the wands when summoning the wilis, whose precision was admirable. I hope, however, Tomasson gives her roles melding her ballon to her effervescence.

From earlier Giselle productions, I realized Hilarion’s downfall is less because of jealousy or exposing Albrecht’s disguise than the more profound malady of lacking love. It isn’t given to Hilarion to grow beyond his grief; it is possible for Albrecht. The tale conveys not only love transcending class barriers but also the soul’s strength to reconcile love’s transcendence in the experience of loss.

Two additional thoughts rise. One, Mark Ingham’s Albrecht in Act II came closest to the interpretations I saw of Rudolf Nureyev with Margot Fonteyn in San Francisco and Mikhail Lavrovsky with Evelyn Hart in Phoenix. Such an interpretation clearly establishes that Giselle is a projection of his mind and the wilis the destructive force of guilt and recrimination.

Finally, when Matilde Froustey received her bouquets, a rose was given not only to Albrecht [Tiit Helimets] but also to Hilarion [Pascal Molat], a testimony perhaps to a fellow graduate of the Paris Opera Ballet School. Van Patten’s rose was limited to Albrecht.

Both performances generated deserved, spontaneous, warm standing ovations.

Ballet San Jose’s Don Quixote

Ballet San Jose seems to have acquired the habit of importing major male dancers for its full length productions, principally to partner Alexsandra Meijer as well as jack up the box office receipts.  It occurred when Tiit Helimets was given S.F. Ballet’s permission to dance Albrecht to Meijer’s Giselle and when Sasha Radetsky assumed the Ben Stevenson take on Cinderella’s Prince in San Jose’s production of Stevenson’s  interpretation of the Sergei Prokoviev score.

For Don Quixote, however, it was Jose Manuel Carreno’s turn, dancing Basilio in a Mikhail Baryshnikov reading of the Marius Petipa-Alexander Gorsky 1869 production of Don Quixote, here staged by Wes Chapman who had danced it during his years with American Ballet Theatre and mounted it twice for Alabama Ballet when he was that company’s artistic director.

On February 15, Junna Ige stepped in to dance Kitri on opening night.  For the Saturday matinee, Amy Marie Briones was assigned the Kitri plum opposite Jeremy Kovitch.  Saturday night was slated to be Ige’s second performance but with Maykel Solas with the Sunday matinee featuring Meijer with Carreno’s second appearance.  Apparently Meijer’s neck injury was comparatively minor.

The production struck me as a catch all with the physical set borrowed from Hans Christian Molbech’s set for Ballet San Jose’s earlier production of August Bournonville’s Toreador augmented in Act II’s Gypsy Camp and the Vision Scene by Santo Loquasto.  I wish Karen Gabay had been given something besides the brassy orange-red wig as bar maid in Act III, where her role took over some of Mercedes’ dancing seen in the San Francisco Ballet production.  Which production is more accurate is up for grabs, given the Bolshoi-influenced version with SFB via Yuri Possokhov and the Kirov/Maryinsky/ Baryshnikov flavor which probably found its way into the Ballet San Jose production.  The sources and their differences could be the source of animated discussions amongst balletomanes more avid than yours truly.

Other discrepancies included the absence of the Inn Keeper’s wife or an expanded role for Sancho Panza, which would have allowed Juan Moreno to exercise his marvelous comic skills which vie with Pasal Molat’s for acuity in the moment.  Costume wise, one might expect Inn Keeper Lorenzo as played by Anton Pankovitch to take off a towel-turned apron in honor of his daughter’s nuptials.

There’s not much new to say about the plot, derived from a small section of  the novel Don Quixote of Miguel de Cervantes.  The ballet reduced the Don to a facilitator of the romance between Kitri, an Innkeeper’s Daughter and Basilio, a young barber.  The Don is utilized to thwart the Innkeeper into blessing the union  even though Lorenzo has been trying to marry Kitri to Gamache, an aging fop with some aristocratic  pretenses and an evident money bag.  Their successful maneuver, brought about by Basilio’s faked attempt at suicide, creates the raison d’etre for the wedding scene and the war horse favorite pas de deux, a constant presence at many galas and international ballet competitions.  In the mix are some gypsies, a street dancer called Mercedes, a Toreador and his cloak-swishing companions plus a dream scene permitting Cupid and the Queen of the Dryads to flit en pointe with the corps de ballet in formation.

Maria Jacobs-Yu piqued effectively as Cupid in the two performances I saw and Jing Zhang and Nutnaree Pipit-Suksun traded roles as Queen of the Dryads and Mercedes.  In the mix were a Toreador and his cloak-swishing companions and a dream scene following the Don’s mishap with the windmill, permitting him a vision of Cupid and the Queen of the Dryads.  Pipit-Suksun’s sensual correctness made her Mercedes a full-fledged flamenco artist, not merely a street dancer, and her Dryad Queen a bit remote but very regal.  Her timing is musical, unforced, never hurried, her port de bras a consistent dream.  Jing Zhang is openly dashing, an  extravert, inclined to sell the high points of her assignments.

Damir Emric and Maximo Califano traded roles as Don Quixote, but Emric took on the role of Espada, the Toreador to Califano’s Don when Wes Chapman gave us a Gamache edged with sarcasm and Califano’s was given to the grandiose gesture. Rudy Candia danced Espada opening night.  When it came to the Gypsy interlude, Beth Ann Namey was the opening woman and Shannon Bynum for Saturday’s matinee.

I saw Jose Manuel Carreno win the Jackson Grand Prix in 1992; his prize money probably is still impounded in a Jackson bank because of his Cuban origins.  He was immediately snapped up for the English National Ballet then under Ivan  Nagy’s direction.  Nearly twenty years later, Junna Ige was a finalist at Jackson, partnered by Shimon Ito in the 2010 Jackson marathon.  It seemed fitting that an unanticipated accident brought the two together, seasoned by that competitive pressure nearly two decades apart.  Carreno’s genial classicism is as correct as ever, master of multiple pirouettes, his grand jetes low and space filling.  Practiced in the role, he enjoyed it.  Except for an off-balance flub in her final fouettes in the grand pas de deux, Ige was spot on, charming, her technique well proportioned and clear.  Her smiling oval face reminded me of Margot Fonteyn in her prime, lively, nothing forced, in the moment.

Saturday’s matinee possessed some ballet history for Bay Area devotees because of Amy Marie Briones’ debut as Kitri; she demonstrated principal role status in this 1869 Ludwig Minkus melodic favorite.  A bevy of students and fans plus Briones’ teacher Ayako Takahashi were witness to Briones’ command of the role, aided by Jeremy Kovitch.  Briones dances large scale, with spirit, her technique ample, final fouettes, if traveling, alternated between singles and doubles.  Briones’ outstanding gifts could incorporate more nuance in her port de corps and port de bras, but as a debut she was simply grand and refreshing.

Kovitch did all right by Basilio, but he could allow himself to assume a macho emphasis, lengthen his sideburns, even add dark rinse to his hair, augmenting his steady partnering and overall dependability.

I hope Don Quixote won’t be out of the repertoire too long.   George Daugherty conducted the orchestra with  much verve  and I’m sure inspired the relish with which the dancers delivered their assignments. The audience responded enthusiastically.

Nureyev Exhibit at Fine Arts Museum, San Francisco

The summer issue of “Fine Arts,” the member magazine for the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, announces a forthcoming exhibit titled:”Rudolf Nureyev: A Life in Dance” to open October 6 at the De Young Museum in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.

The announcement reads the exhibit “will showcase more than 80 costumes and 50 photographs from the dancer’s personal collection, entrusted to the Centre national du costume de scene in Moulins, France, by the Rudolf Nureyev Foundation, and will incorporate key loans from active ballet companies.”

The announcement further states “Nureyev loved sumptuous shows and was particular about his costumes, often imposing changes and improvements.  The costumes on view expose the wear and tear of daily use, bearing witness to the lives and bodies of Nureyev and his partners Margot Fonteyn, Noella Pontois, and so many others.

“The exhibition illustrates a life devoted entirely to dance and highlights ballets danced for choreographed by Nureyev…. Each ballet is displayed in a dramatic installation that emphasizes its spellbinding theatricality.”

Since CAL Performances will be presenting the Maryinsky Ballet October 10-12, it might well be exciting for the visiting dancers as well as the host of local balletomanes who witnessed Nureyev’s San Francisco appearances as well as dance lovers fascinated by the man and his legends.

Book Review: Knight, Douglas M, Jr., Balasaraswati: Her Art & Life

The Asian Art Museum in San Francisco is currently installing Maharaja, a magnificent exhibit which was organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. It will be the second North American  venue  for the 200 objects to be on view from late October  2011 to early April 2012, then to be seen in Richmond, Virginia following  its closing in San Francisco before returning to London.

From what I have learned of the objects, I  doubt that Tamil culture will be given much representation in the Maharaja Exhibit.  The biography reviewed below, however, should do much to give flesh to the performing arts which both flourished and struggled to survive in the years represented by the V& A objects.

Knight, Douglas  M, Jr., Balasaraswati: Her Art & Life

Middletown CT, Wesleyan University Press, 2010, 325 pp, illustrated, $35.00

Written with meticulous care, Knight, who is Bala’s son-in-law, has related not just Bala’s life, but an effective portrait of the trials of traditional artists in late nineteenth- twentieth century India .  The devastation that moral certitude and Christian mores emanating from the British Raj wrecked on their lives and livelihoods is described through the legislative acts and the influence it visited on certain former devasdasi  family members.  That Bala’s family, immediate and extended, have survived is a testimony to courage, dedication and the power of an artistic expression to sustain its practitioners.

Knight provides a singular service in the early chapters where he reviews the devadasi system, how it worked, its matrilineal descent ,  the reliance on regal and aristocratic patronage, plus the devastation when the artists were prohibited from following traditional patterns of dedication and performance in the temple.  Bala’s family managed to circumvent those restrictions and she was dedicated at an early age and danced in a small temple, apparently with the aid of rupees passing hands with the temple keepers.

The intensity of Bala’s training, commencing at the cradle, was unremitting.  It was partially dislocated when Uday Shankar lured Kandappa to his short lived artistic colony Almora. Knight  reviews the extraordinary talent and influence of her grandmother Vina Dhanammal.  The movement parallel to her training, that of the rise of Kalekshetra, a multi-classical form theatrical institution, is discussed. Started by Rukmuni  Devi Arundale,  her connection with the Theosophical Society and its influence  is also recorded.  Kalekshetra reflects the transition for many dancers of the shift from individual dedication, disciple to guru and the years of servitude connected with training, to instruction by masters hired by an institution and paid a salary for transmitting their knowledge.

Born with a heart murmur, Bala’s health intermittently provided problems and resulting economic difficulties.  In 1949 Beryl de Zoete managed to get Bala to dance for her.  Recorded in de Zoete’s book, The Other Mind, this fostered a tardy if steady path of recognition.  In 1955 she was honored with other  traditional artists by The Sangeet Natak Akademi in New Delhi, India’s equivalent of the National Endowment of the Arts’ performing division;  in 1957 she was awarded The Padma Bushan by India’s president.

A visa permitting Bala to travel abroad had been periodically denied her;  in 1961 Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan staked her government career on Bala’s appearing in Tokyo at the East-West Conference where the likes of Yahudi Menuin and Margot Fonteyn represented the West and Ali Akbar Khan and Bala and her family represented India.  Dr. Vatsyayan used Bala for a lecture demonstration and following her recital, Fonteyn remarked to Dr. Vatsyayan, “And I thought I was a dancer!”

With this breakthrough, Bala was invited to teach at a six-week residency at Wesleyan University, to be followed by selected performances at universities and non-profit organizations.  She also danced for curry concerts at Wesleyan University. I provided information leading to Bala’s San Francisco appearances under the Welland Lathrop Dance Studio, underwritten by Samuel H. and Luise E. Scripps.  Bala’s dancing was an emotional tsunami and forever stamped my evaluations of dance and dancers.

Bala’s effect on her American students was simply huge.  A reticent, if pithy-spoken woman, she created a coterie of passionate disciples of bharata natam.  Prime among them was Luise Scripps. It was totally intriguing  that  Bala, most traditionally feminine, created such a response in American women at the height of Women’s Liberation,  two approaches to life  at the opposite ends of the spectrum.

Because of her influence, The American Society for Eastern Arts (ASEA) was incorporated in 1963; during its comparatively brief history ASEA provided American students of non-Western music, dance and theatre forms with intensive summer training under acknowledged masters. ASEA presented Ali Akbar Khan in his first U.S. tour and musical residency and the Kathakali performances by the Kerala Kalamandalum troupe.

Unfortunately, there are just two known films of Bala; one was recorded during Bala’s residency at Wesleyan and the other by Satyajit Ray, filmed on the beach near Madras  and therefore subject to the vagaries of sea breezes.   Some footage is available through Aniruddin Knight, Bala’s grandson , a dancer trained by his mother, Lakshmi Knight, and appearing in special venues in the United States and  India.

Talking to Frankie

F. Sionil Jose is the prolific, Ilocano-born English writer of the Philippines, whose love of country is tempered by an undeviating gaze at its flaws and short-comings, faithfully recorded in the five novels comprising The Rosales Saga, some eight additional novels plus seven collections of short stories with translations in nearly thirty languages. With his wife, Teresita, or Tessie, they represent the best of this Asian country. The Philippines, incidentally, frequently is said to have “spent three hundred years in the convent and fifty years in Hollywood.” The quip, of course, reflects the Spanish colonial domination, 1565-1899, and the American colonial period, 1900-1946. The implications of this quip is all grist for the Jose novels, which emerge almost without pause from the pages in his typewriter.

En route from the Jose Quezon City home to La Solidaridad Book Store in Manila’s Ermita district in July, Frankie steered the conversation to his abundant memories of dance wherever he had witnessed it both in the Philippines and abroad. “I saw Margot Fonteyn dance in London and Rudolf Nureyev in New York,” he declared.

The majority of his comments, however, centered around his observations in Asia and the Philippines.

For the Filipinescas production of their Igorot Suite, performed by the ‘other’ Filipino ethnic dance company until the death of its artistic director, Frankie expressed high praise. “It was so beautiful,” he declared his voice rising with enthusiasm. [An example can be seen on YouTube, with the choreographer’s name, Leonora Orosa Conquinco, with the title Maysa, and remarkable in its use of crossing diagonals.] “In the ‘Fifties I traveled all through the Philippines and saw native dances done by natives, not learned by trained dancers,” the last phrase delivered with a faint but distinct note of dismissal.

“When we were in Ceylon two years, I insisted that my daughters Gigi and Jette study bharata natyam and Tonet study tabla. I even tried the table myself but lasted only two weeks,” he chuckled, before commenting on the habit some Asian intellectuals occasionally make in disparaging native dance forms. “ One Indonesian wanted to ‘modernize’ The Balinese Legong!” he related in incredulous tones, “when actually modern dance should learn from Legong. Have you ever seen it? It’s classic, and you shouldn’t tamper with the classics!”