San Francisco Ballet - "Frankenstein"

San Francisco Ballet in Scarlett's Frankenstein
Photo Lindsay Thomas

San Francisco Ballet
Frankenstein
War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco
March 22, 2025

The pelting rainstorm sent chills through the air. The anatomical diagrams on the main curtain felt undeniably foreboding. The score’s opening passages haunted. Such were the first few minutes of San Francisco Ballet in Liam Scarlett’s Frankenstein, a co-production with The Royal Ballet. That chilly, ominous sensation emanated and persisted throughout the entire three-Act story. 

SFB premiered Frankenstein back in 2017, with an encore during the following 2018 season. At that time, I wrote about the in-depth narrative (inspired by Mary Shelley’s original novel) as well as the celebration/tragedy arc of the ballet’s three main pas de deux. Rather than repeating that commentary, I opted to think about some other aspects of the work at this viewing some seven years later.

First - the thematic essence. The throughline underpinning the whole world of Frankenstein. The fragile nature of the human condition. Every character is touched by this, beginning right in Act I, no one seems spared. Speaking of Act I, it goes full throttle for a full fifty-minutes. The viewer needs to buckle up for this circuitous ride. There’s an adoption, a birth, a profession of love, a proposal, a death, a journey to university, a grisly operating theater and finally, the creation of The Creature, portrayed at Saturday’s matinee by Cavan Conley. Throughout all this action, mortality’s darkness is revealed to many – Victor Frankenstein (Esteban Hernández), his mother (Gabriela Gonzalez), Elizabeth (Jasmine Jimison) and Justine (Elizabeth Powell).

A second revelation became readily apparent as the Act continued. While the main roles in Frankenstein are formidable (and crafted for dancers who are also extremely good actors, like those on SFB’s current roster), this full-length work is equally built for the corps de ballet. Here, the corps never fades into the background. From servants to students to tavern dwellers to nurses to party guests to wedding attendees, the corps’ sections are inventive, thoughtful and complex, without looking fussy or busy. An abundance of demi-pointework danced in pointe shoes pointed to the juicy ‘in between’ spaces in the narrative. It was a nod to how things were rarely black and white; Frankenstein, instead abiding in grayish zones.

Mortality would come again for many souls in Act II, but the highlight of the middle chapter was the duet between Victor and Elizabeth. Hernández and Jimison were marvelous at conveying the distance and uncertainty that had crept into their relationship. Meeting for brief moments, Victor continually turned and walked away from his intended, unable to come to terms with what he had done. Conley excelled as The Creature, though I still find some of the monster character’s choreography to be a little too pretty. 

Frankenstein is packed with significant scene changes, lighting spectacle, pyrotechnics, props and costumes, and every time a change was due to occur, moves were swift, rapid and appropriately urgent. Something that had been missing earlier in the company’s season. 

Act III’s wedding celebration is packed with stellar dance architecture, as The Creature weaves his way in and out of the scene, playing with Victor’s emotions and sanity. It’s pure genius! Once you spot The Creature and attempt to track and anticipate his movements in the space, inevitably, you lose sight of him. He has transformed into an elusive chameleon. In Frankenstein’s final moments, mortality arrives, plaguing the cast one last time. It comes to Victor’s father (Daniel Deivison-Oliveira), his beloved friend Henry (Dylan Pierzina), his true love, and finally to Victor himself. Mortality had touched everyone, and even The Creature did not truly escape unscathed.

Batsheva Dance Company

Cal Performances presents
Batsheva Dance Company
MOMO
Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley
Feb 23rd, 2025

A frequent comment I make at monthly book club is that a novel is ‘overwritten.’ I’ve said it on countless occasions, whether I love the story or if it’s just not for me. I feel like twenty percent of material could often be edited out and the larger whole would still work and work well. Still convey the same message. I had a similar sense as I watched Sunday’s matinee of Batsheva Dance Company’s MOMO, presented by Cal Performances. I found MOMO captivating, haunting, eerie and impeccably danced by its eleven cast members. But at seventy minutes, it was too long with similar physical syntax and extended sequences of repetition. And yet, from beginning to end, I was completely taken with the dance’s compositional structure.

Choreographed in 2022 by Ohad Naharin (with collaboration from the company and Ariel Cohen), MOMO reads like a physical fugue, a formal space where different movement lines emerge as concurrently interdependent and independent. There was the central male quartet who mapped the stage’s perimeter, first entering from stage right. With palms on sacrums, they immediately established that their every movement phrase would be deliberate, unhurried, measured. Next a serpentine body arrived, cycling through lay-outs, old-school jazz extensions, vogueing and runway choreography. Other figures entered the scene – a woman frantically boureé-ing on demi-pointe, a sprightly pixie skipping through the space, and more. All these different movement lines were in dialog with each other throughout, and yet, they could have easily stood on their own as solo experiences. That is textbook fugue – a form that allows an exchange between entities as well as celebrating singularity of each specific moment.

Batsheva Dance Company in MOMO
Photo Ascaf

Mid-way through MOMO, the back wall transformed into a climbing/bouldering surface. The original quartet were the first to scale the topography, methodically ascending until they were seated high in space, ready to survey the action that was to come. And what a sequence it was! Perhaps the standout of the entire piece. The boureé-ing dancer from early on began a variation at a portable ballet barre, complete with contemporary and traditional vocabulary. Pencheé and petit battement infused the phrase as did brilliantly suspended lifts, where the barre acted as her partner. The rest of the cast joined, each with their own individual barres, and the movement continued to toggle and oscillate. Calm and frenzied; angry and soothing; upright and upside down; classical and Gaga languages. Such stunning design, choreography and performances, and the scene was another example of MOMO’s beautiful fugal state. Commentary and conversations between unique tones, qualities and techniques. It just could have been twenty percent shorter.

 

San Francisco Ballet - "Cool Brittania"

San Francisco Ballet
“Cool Brittania”
February 13th, 2025
War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco

San Francisco Ballet’s second program of the season, “Cool Brittania”, could have easily been named “Contemporary Brittania.” The triple bill, which opened Thursday evening, was a dynamic mix of forward-thinking ballet and dance performance. All three pieces were choreographed within the last two decades, each with a uniquely current choreographic lens. Wayne McGregor’s Chroma (2006) kicked off the night, followed by Christopher Wheeldon’s Within the Golden Hour (2008), and finally, an SFB premiere, 2013’s Dust by Akram Khan.

Frances Chung and Max Cauthorn in 
McGregor's Chroma
Photo © Reneff-Olson Productions

True to its title, McGregor’s Chroma is intense. It reveals the energetic space between extremes and asks the viewer to hold tight over a high-throttle thirty-minute ride. An ensemble work for ten, Chroma is very contemporary, not a pointe shoe in sight. It’s sumptuous, attention-grabbing and futuristic, all at the same time. 

The rising curtain gives way to striking minimalism – a bright white square, with an even brighter rectangular light. Right from the start, 2nd position over splits were everywhere, a signature McGregor move. Extreme positions continued, as did a frenzied, aggressive, urgent atmosphere. And yet, the juxtaposition of opposites is undeniable. Flexion and contortion paired with clean, placed, precise motions. Serpentine curves interacted with straight lines - classic arabesques would suddenly fold and drip towards the ground. Intensely effortful phrases would end with hands and legs collapsing mid-air. Opening night’s cast handled the complexities with vigor and grace, save for some awkward partnering.

San Francisco Ballet in
Wheeldon's Within the Golden Hour
Photo © Reneff-Olson Productions

The pointe shoes came out for Wheeldon’s Within the Golden Hour, a statement of contemporary elegance and sweeping romance. Designer Zac Posen’s new costuming had been well-reported over the past weeks and months, and they did not disappoint. Flowy skirts with accordion pleats for the dance’s seven women, unitards for the seven men. Balayage, ombré hues of oranges, purples, pinks and reds evoked the sunset, but also made a perfect palette for Valentine’s Day. Like McGregor, Wheeldon also has favorite postures that tend to make an appearance in his work, like how one dancer supports the lower leg of another as they inhale forward into space. 

Long jazz runs flew through the air; a concentric circle vignette offered a sense of community. Plenty of parallel positions and flexed feet met with off-center balances. Sasha De Sola and Harrison James introduced a rhythmic tango-esque social dance sequence that pleasantly recurred throughout. And then there was the duet by Luca Ferrò and Dylan Pierzina! By far the most phenomenal minutes of the piece, the pair exuded joy, playfulness and technical perfection. So much so that I couldn’t take my eyes off the stage, and I think many audience members held their breath. Within the Golden Hour makes you feel happy, at least that’s the way I felt as the curtain fell. 

San Francisco Ballet in Khan's Dust
Photo © Reneff-Olson Productions

After seeing the main pas de deux from Khan’s Dust last month at SFB’s gala, I remarked that it needed context. And seeing the entire dance certainly provides it. The burning horizon and piles of scorched earth (lighting by Fabiana Piccioli, scenes by Sander Loonen) provided a cinematic visual of disaster and destruction. Kimie Nakano’s costumes placed the action in a rural, agricultural time of long ago. With every step and motion, leads Benjamin Davidoff and Katherine Barkman conveyed pain, anguish and hardship. But it was the corps, particularly the women, who made all the difference in Dust. Their presence added a sense of shared struggle, and their featured moments really made the piece work. 

Connecting arms and elbows together, the ensemble created ropes on each side of Davidoff’s back, pulling his soul and being in different directions. Next, eleven women took centerstage in a primal movement experience. With every staccato and angular step, their groundedness and connection to the earth was resolute. The variation was full of contorted, tortured movements – hearts and collarbones reaching heavenward; palms splayed open – both gestures pleading desperately for help.

San Francisco Ballet in Khan's Dust
Photo © Reneff-Olson Productions