In Russia before the Revolution, one of the great social events of the year was the spring performance of the Imperial Ballet School, which trained the dancers for the Tsar's theater. These recitals were widely reported in the press, and the balletomanes all had their favorites. Pavlova, Nijinsky, Karsavina were all spotted early. Nijinsky was in fact already famous, having danced featured roles on the stage of the Maryinsky.
Russian dancers in exile founded the great American schools, which were modeled on that great school in St. Petersburg. George Balanchine established the School of American Ballet in New York in 1934, and just a few months before that, Adolph Bolm had founded the San Francisco Ballet School here. (Bolm had created the starring role in Fokine's Polovtsian Dances in 1911.)
It takes 10 years to make a dancer. Ballet technique is based on "placement," i.e., the alignment of the bones that supports the body with the least strain. Skill in finding that alignment is far more important than mere muscular strength. What's crucial is mastering this shifting architecture. That takes practice, and talent, and excellent training, which develops the body in a unique way, with tremendous strength reserved in the spine, near the body's core. In a male dancer, you notice the symmetry: the shoulders, not the chest; the neck, not the biceps; the narrow waist, the hip-bones, genitals, the thighs, calves, and feet, and the beautiful carriage of the head. From the back, you notice the beautiful buttocks.
This year's San Francisco Ballet School Student Showcase presented in quick succession the marvelous children in their grades, from the tinies up to the intermediate kids, who looked ready and excited, and showed off their school figures with style and charm. The rest of the evening went to showing the more advanced dancers in a range of styles, from the classic Tarantella by August Bournonville's Napoli (danced with tambourines, fancy footwork and intoxicating rhythmic flair by the level 6 girls and Intermediate boys) to the contemporary.
The other classic was a suite from Petipa's great Sleeping Beauty in Helgi Tomasson's version, which is perhaps the supreme test, since everything is exposed. They fared very well indeed, especially since Sleeping Beauty is hard to make wonderful in concert conditions. To extract the Rose Adagio – in which four suitors each offer her the rose of his love – is much more difficult than to pull the grand pas de deux from Swan Lake. In the first place, it is stately. Tension builds. Without the sets, without the other characters (with whom our heroine often exchanges glances), especially the Queen her mother (to whom she actually gives the flowers she's received), what is she going to do with this handful of flowers? And so forth.
Without those purposeful exchanges of unspoken feelings, the physical structure of the dancing is left threadbare – all the little changes of epaulement that go with that soften, round out and add vivacity to the geometric grandeur and heroic difficulties of those balances. The prologue's fairies were fine, and especially Jessica Cohen and the dynamite Ellen Rose Hummel, but the dancers looked overexposed in the Rose Adagio, except for Alexander Reneff-Olson, as the first of the suitors, whose elegance of line made you believe this was a palace. The ballerina, Bryn Gilbert, handled her difficulties reasonably, though she concealed few of them. She danced much better when she didn't have to deal with a partner, but even so, her manners were more those of a suburban American girl than a princess. James Wynn made a handsome Prince Desire, dancing the vision with Koto Ishihara; Cecily Khuner was outstanding as the Sapphire Fairy.
The dancers looked much more comfortable, and very stylish indeed, in the two "modern" pieces: Lusions, choreographed for them by their teacher Parrish Maynard (himself a former star), in a Grahamesque manner that included sudden transfers to the floor, and work in horizontal positions, and moves that required the sudden attack of karate. The men looked great in this. Lacey Escabar shone in her duet with Geraud Wielick, and Ellen Rose Hummel tore it up in a lightning-fast duet with James Wynn.
The last, 5.26.2010, made the youths look very sexy and flat-out gorgeous in an astrological allegory that had something to do with the planets and their alignments on May 26 (opening night): The very flexible Sergio Navarro kicked himself in the back of the head and in the nose, and everybody looked so good you just wanted to take them shopping.
Twin poles
In other news, Scott Wells' extremely enjoyable show runs through this weekend at Counterpulse. With the exception of guest artist Colette Stewart, it's all guys.
Wells works a dialectic between two poles of masculinity: a deeply poetic, musical inwardness on the one hand, and a testosterone-rushed ferocity at the other end, and the sudden movements back and forth along that emotional/physical continuum can be sublime. I laughed, I cried.
The communities he can get going evoke the male bonding in Greek folk-dancing. It's not sexual, but it's very affectionate, almost romantic. They're trained in gymnastics and circus arts, and the way they fly, giving each other a leg up, keeps you smiling the whole time. In the last section, they body-surf these huge gym-balls, and juggle small round balls with the most delicate tosses and fantastically easy catches, it's almost like guys playing with their dogs, the affection is so palpable. His work is intensely affectionate. It's such a relief.